The Otherworldly Traveler
by miserymire
Summary: Robots. Teleporters. Colonies on Mars. 2119 has it all—and Vanna Meadows has the chance to escape it by testing out a new time traveling device called NEVA. An out-of-this-world malfunction leaves her in an unfamiliar, dangerous land that she becomes trapped in, and cooperating with the imp that trapped her there in the first place is her only chance at returning to her old life.
1. NEVA

"I know how kids these days are, Vanna. You think that just because we don't have information streamed into our brains and completely sentient robots yet that technology isn't that great, but it is. If it weren't for technology, you wouldn't even be hearing what I'm saying right now!"

"I guess I'm not a kid from these days then, because I couldn't care less about if robots have real feelings or not, and I think the technology we have now is great. Don't act like hearing aids are anywhere near comparable to __this__. Even just the idea is outrageous."

"And hundreds of years ago, the idea of the deaf being able to hear using tiny devices in their ears was outrageous."

I let out a resigned sigh, and I continued to follow Mr. Rider down one of the pristine halls of Ridertech in silence. I loved Mr. Rider, and I thought he was an absolute genius. He was renowned around the world for his Synthumans and TPorts, the best robots and teleportation devices on the market, but too often he let that get to his head. It made him think he was capable of making anything. That ' _anything_ ' included NEVA, a TPort with the added ability to travel through time. Today, my job was to test it, and I was not exactly pleased.

Mr. Rider came to a stop in front of a metal door with ' _TESTING –_ _47_ ' engraved on a plaque above it, several seconds before my much shorter legs were able to catch up. He pressed his finger on the scanner next to the door, and the scanner flashed green before the door zipped up into the wall. Mr. Rider strode into the room ahead of me, going straight to a desk with a black device on it. I took one step inside. The door closed so fast behind me that red strands of my long hair blew forward. Everything suddenly felt all too real—I was in the testing room, NEVA was in Mr. Rider's hand, and the moment I had been dreading was staring me right in the face.

I slowly walked to Mr. Rider. He turned towards me, proudly displaying NEVA. "Here it is!" he said, in the cheery voice he had reserved for when he would show off his new gadgets and creations.

I grimaced as I stared at NEVA where it sat on Mr. Rider's hand. The black armband had a green backlit screen over the wrist and a virtual keyboard across the midsection. It didn't look too different from my own TPort, which was one of the older models.

"...I was expecting something a bit more complex-looking," I said after a few moments. "It looks so simplistic."

"It's a feature," he said, making me roll my eyes. "Besides, you know the complex stuff is what's inside of them, not outside. All teleporters look simplistic now."

"The first commercial teleporter came out, what, in the eighties? It's 2119, of course they'd be simplistic by now. NEVA should look at least __a little__ more clunky and awkward like the first makes of teleporters were."

"NEVA __is__ a teleporter," Mr. Rider said. I opened my mouth, but before I could get anything out, he went on speaking. "It's a heavily upgraded one, but one nonetheless, and I've been working on it since before you were created!" My nose scrunched up at the way he decided to word that. "Er, born. Sorry. So, I always tried to keep NEVA looking just as sleek as any other TPort while making it. Zi actually helped me with that. I thought it'd be best to have a young person help, since they know all about what people think looks good. And speaking of Zi, I turned down his request to be the first person to try NEVA. I didn't even ask your mother if she wanted to try it yet. You should feel honored that I'm giving you the chance to be _the_ _first person who ever time travels_."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Zi was his son and protégé, and my mother had been working as a beta tester for Mr. Rider for over twenty years. If I were him, those were the two that I would have trusted the most to be testing out NEVA. I knew very well that Mr. Rider loved me like I was the daughter he never had—if only because my late father had been his closest friend since they were kids—but there was a part of me that felt like he wanted me to be the one to test out NEVA because I was more replaceable than Zi or my mom.

"You know there's a chance that thing could be deadly," I said in a flat tone.

"If I thought there was a chance that NEVA could kill, I wouldn't be letting __anybody__ try it out, especially not a child—"

"I'm seventeen."

"—and especially not _you_ ," he said, ignoring my interruption. "You're my son's best friend—and to be honest with you, a lot of the time, I like you more than him."

Mr. Rider laughed briefly at himself, and I couldn't help but crack the tiniest grin. I always enjoyed making jokes with him at the expense of his lovable but mischievous son, and the flattery did admittedly help calm my fear that he saw me as replaceable. Still, my fear of using NEVA lingered.

"Listen, Vanna, if you don't want to try it out, that's fine. It was just an offer. There are a lot of other up-and-coming projects you can beta test for me. I just thought you'd be interested in getting to test out something where you can finally have the freedom your mom doesn't let you have."

Out of all of the things he had said to try to convince me that trying out NEVA was an incredible opportunity, that was by far the one that resonated with me the most. My mom had always been extremely overprotective, especially so after my dad died unexpectedly in a spacebus crash while on a business trip to Mars three years back. The only time I was allowed out of her sight was when I was at school, with one of the Rider's, or with my two older half-sisters, Kalina and Jaylene.

This was my chance to get away. And if I came back unscathed, then I would have all the proof I needed to show her that I was capable of surviving without supervision.

"I can see that made you rethink this, huh?" Mr. Rider said with a smile.

I smiled back. "That sounds nice. But..."

"But you're still scared," he finished for me. I nodded. "Well, I don't think you've got any reason to be. You've got your own gun for this, and you've learned how to use it, but you know that if anything happens to you while you're gone, we'll fix you right up when you get back."

' _We_ ,' of course, meant his wife, Mrs. Rider, or as she modestly refused to be called, Dr. Rider. Mr. Rider was technically a doctor as well, in that he had received a doctorate in engineering, but his wife was a pediatrician. I agreed with Mr. Rider that she could help me no matter what, but what he said only proved to worry me further. I was so worried that my time traveling would potentially affect the entire universe that I hadn't even thought about what physical damage could be done to me if I _didn't_ rip the universe to shreds.

Mr. Rider sat NEVA back down on the desk next to its instruction manual. "Like I said: if you don't want to try it out, that's fine. It's all up to you."

I pursed my lips as I looked down at it. Mr. Rider said he didn't believe it could kill me, and I trusted him, so that wasn't an issue to me any longer, but there were so many other things I knew could go wrong with it. What if I got stuck in the future and couldn't come back? What if I got stuck in the past, or did something there that completely changed the course of history? What if I messed something up so majorly that I created a paradox and made the universe cease to exist?

But what if it __di__ _ _d__ work? What if I __was__ the first person to ever time travel? What if I could finally, _finally_ have the freedom I'd been yearning for?

I was drawn out of my thoughts by the view of Mr. Rider looking down at the screen on his TPort from my peripheral. He typed in something, then dropped his arm and looked back to me.

"I'm needed in another part of the factory," he said. "You can have some alone time to try to make up your mind. If you do decide to try out NEVA, read the instructions I left on the desk first, all right? If you decide not to try it, then feel free to leave. Zi said he wanted to see you today, so you can teleport to our house if you want to. I'll be back in a few minutes."

I barely got the chance to say "Okay" before he was out of the room. As the door shut behind him, I looked at the desk. My eyes scanned the piece of paper with NEVA's instructions on it. It didn't seem too complicated to use; the only way it differed from other TPorts was the time travel command. Written below the instructions was a warning, urging the user to avoid messing with events in the past for fear of paradoxes. That had been obvious to me, but seeing it written on paper made me even more scared of the possibility of it happening.

I decided to just go to the future instead. Though I told myself there couldn't be any paradoxes then because of the future not even happening yet, my hand was still shaking as I picked up NEVA and put it on my right arm. I toyed around with the idea of taking off the TPort on my left arm, admittedly just to procrastinate using NEVA, and I ultimately decided to take it off in case NEVA would mess with it in some way. I closed my eyes—like you were supposed to before teleporting, as the sudden change in scenery was known to be migraine-inducing—and tried to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to say.

"NEVA, activate," I said. "Time travel: September 1st, 2319."

I heard crackling noises coming from NEVA, prompting me to open my eyes and look down. I was still in the same room, and NEVA was starting to spark. I hurried to take it off, but before I could, the sparks started to fly wildly and a shock coursed through my body, rendering me unable to move. I couldn't even yell for help or open my eyes that had squeezed shut from the pain.

I was going to kill Mr. Rider if NEVA didn't kill me first.

* * *

 ** **Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I revised it 11/10/17, and now it's 1860 words instead of the 1089 words it originally was. I didn't change what was already there, I just added some exposition that I thought was missing.**** ** **It's still a lot shorter than I typically aim for now (later chapters are around 4000-4500 words) but at least it falls in line a little bit better.****

 ** **You can head over to deviantart,com/miserymire (with a period instead of a comma :p) i**** ** **f you want to see what the characters look like and find out more about them**** ** **. Vanna, Mr. Rider, and Zi are the main OCs in this,**** **but I always like to** **know my characters' backstories and have a** **visual of them no matter how small their roles are. I'll be adding more drawings there whenever new OCs are introduced.**

 **Also, if you prefer stories in third person or you just prefer archiveofourown, this story is now on archiveofourown in third person! It's the same title and I have the same username there so it should be pretty easy to find if you wanna.**


	2. Link

Suddenly, the electricity stopped coursing through me. I fell to my knees, let out the breath I had been involuntarily holding in, and took NEVA off before it could have the chance to shock me again. I opened my teary eyes to inspect my burning arm. If I hadn't already fallen to the ground, I definitely would have just then. I was in a small clearing in the middle of a _forest_.

There were two sunken lanes, one to my left and one straight ahead of me, and to my right was a tree house. I was bewildered, to say the least. How, in the course of two hundred years, did the bustling industrial city I was raised in become a forest? I knew people were obsessed with ' _saving the planet_ ' enough to plant trees in every piece of unoccupied land there was, but tearing down _an entire city_ just to make a forest was such an absurd thought that I didn't even consider it for more than a few seconds.

There had to be some other explanation. Maybe NEVA had put me in a completely random place because I hadn't specified where I wanted to go. I'd have to tell Mr. Rider to fix that whenever I went back. Until then, I wanted to find out where exactly NEVA had put me, and the only way to do that was to find someone in the area to tell me.

I got off the ground and wiped the dirt off my legs. I decided to go see if someone was in the tree house first, as it was closest to me. Leaving NEVA on the ground—I didn't want to touch that thing for a while in fear of it shocking me again—I climbed up the ladder to the tree house. I knocked on the door, and my heart raced in anticipation. That anticipation gradually faded away as thirty seconds passed with no sign of someone coming to the door. I knocked again, and after another thirty seconds passed, I decided to peek in.

I opened the door as quietly as I could and poked my head in. Nobody was inside, so I let myself the rest of the way in, not fully closing the door behind me. It was a nice little tree house, but it looked so ... old-fashioned. There wasn't a single technological device to be seen. I mentally remarked that the house was probably owned by some dirty old tree hugger, and decided to go down one of the paths to see if anyone else lived nearby. Just as I got back to the door, it started to open wider. I gasped at the same time as the person who opened the door did.

"I'm not a robber, I swear!" I immediately yelled, throwing my hands up.

He said nothing at first, simply staring me up and down, and I took the time to do the same of him. Surprisingly, he didn't look like a dirty old tree hugger. His strange and slightly familiar green getup that included a sword on his back definitely looked old-fashioned, but he seemed to be about my age. He was actually quite good looking. He had striking blue eyes and dirty blond hair that was almost light brown. I briefly wondered if the average height had gone down drastically over the last two hundred years, because I was probably only an inch shorter than the slim boy, and I was short for a girl in the 2100s. I noticed that he was holding NEVA in one of his gloved hands. When I looked back up to his face, his cheeks were red.

"Who are you, and why are you in my house?" he finally asked.

"Oh, you're Southern," I said. I had never been out of the Mid-Atlantic, and barely ever out of New Jersey, so I was taken aback to realize I was so far from home. "Uh, my name's Vanna. I'm ... a very long way from home. I came in here to find someone to tell me where exactly I'm at, because I have no idea. I promise you, I wasn't in here to rob you or anything like that. If you just tell me where I am, I'll be on my way."

"Ordon."

"Ordon?" I repeated. "I'm guessing it's someplace in the South, huh?"

He nodded. "Only village down here in Ordona Province..."

I was baffled for a second because of his claim that we were in a province—what had happened to the states? Were we even in America at all?—but I was quickly distracted when I realized that he had on pointed ears, and it clicked why his outfit was familiar. "Why are you cosplaying as Zelda? That's _classic_. Was there some kind of reprisal between the 2100s and now?"

His eyebrows drew together in confusion. "What? What are you talking about?"

I mirrored his confused look. "You're cosplaying as Zelda."

"What's ' _cosplaying_ _'_ _?_ "

"Oh, is there a new word for cosplaying?" I asked. "Sorry, uh, I'm not exactly up-to-date with the newest terms. I just mean that you're dressing up as Zelda."

He looked even more confused at that. "I ain't dressin' up as Zelda," he said, looking down at his clothes. "I was given—"

"Link!" I suddenly exclaimed, making his head snap back up. "His name is Link, not Zelda. Zelda's the princess, right? I was never into old games, and you know Zelda games are some of the oldest of old games. Sorry. What were you gonna say?"

He stared at me for a few seconds before speaking. "I was gonna say that I was given this outfit and told that it belonged to some ancient hero, but... What do you mean ' _his name is Link_ ' and what are ' _Zelda game_ _s_ ' supposed to be?"

"Link was the hero in the Zelda games, so whoever gave you that outfit was talking about him. Zelda games are so ancient at this point that they're not widely known, I'm guessing, but they used to be really popular in the late 1900s and early 2000s."

"Okay," he said slowly, "and what exactly do you mean by ' _game_ _s_ '?"

"Oh, come on," I said, putting my hand on my hip. "There's no way that video games have fallen out in the 2300s."

"Why are you talking about the 1900s and 2000s and 2100s and 2300s?" he said. "It's 1598. Are you okay?"

My eyes widened. "It's _1598?_ " I said in disbelief.

Once he nodded, I snatched NEVA out of his hands and looked at its screen. Sure enough, it said that the date was September 1st, 1598.

Surprised as I was, it made a lot of sense. NEVA must have taken me back about 500 years instead of forward 200 like I had told it to. It explained why the boy didn't know about cosplaying or video games or Zelda, and why his house was so old-fashioned and barren of technology.

But then, I realized, my explanation of someone giving him the Link outfit made no sense. Link wasn't an ancient hero in the 1500s. How would someone from this time have known about the hero of a video game hundreds of years before video games were invented?

"...Is that thing yours?" the boy asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I found it on the ground outside."

"Yeah, it's mine, I left it there," I said. "Who gave you that outfit?"

"I could ask the same of you," he said, quickly glancing back down at my clothes.

I supposed it being the 1500s also explained why he had blushed when he saw what I was wearing. Bodysuits and crop tops definitely weren't in in the past.

"I know nobody dresses like this normally, whatever," I said. "Seriously, who gave you that outfit?"

"It ... wasn't exactly a person. It was a Light Spirit."

"A Light Spirit?" I said.

"You really haven't heard of them?" he asked. "The Light Spirits each protect a province at the order of the Goddesses. The one who watches over Faron Province gave me this tunic."

Every word he said was just making me more and more confused. "What _Goddesses?_ I thought everyone believed in Jesus or whatever in the 1500s."

"The Golden Goddesses...? Din, Nayru, Farore...? Y'know, the ones who created this green Earth?"

It took me a second to realize what he meant, and when I did, I crossed my arms. "Yeah, I've heard about the Golden Goddesses. I never liked history or Zelda games in particular, but I do like games, and I know that people in 1598 didn't believe in the Golden Goddesses, because the Golden Goddesses weren't thought up until the _1990s_. You can't—you don't really think I believe that I'm actually in, what's it called, _Hyrule?_ "

"Ordon's not really a part of it, so you're not actually in Hyrule, but—"

"But you really want me to believe that Hyrule is _real_ _?_ " I interjected.

He looked at me like I was insane. "Why would you believe that Hyrule _isn't_ real?"

"Because Hyrule _isn't_ real!" I said. "This—oh, god dammit, I know what this is! Ugh! Zi and his dad are pranking me! This is some VR game, isn't it?! That's what NEVA is!"

"What's—?"

"Oh, shut up, _Link_ ," I said. I squeezed my eyes shut. "You're not real. You're a made-up character in a virtual reality game, and I'm not even actually talking to you right now."

"She's _insane_ ," whispered a high-pitched voice in a sing-song tone.

I opened my eyes, and nearly stumbled back when I saw a small shadowy creature floating in the air next to Link. The creature dived down to the ground quickly, merging with the boy's shadow.

"Sorry 'bout her," Link said.

"I'm not sorry," said the girl from where she still hid in his shadow. "Seriously, Link. Just leave. We have stuff to do, and crazy here is only holding us back."

"She's not crazy. She's confused," he responded. "Vanna, how did you get here?"

I took in a deep breath. "I was given NEVA, a time traveling device, and I told it to take me from 2119, where I was, to 2319. It went crazy and sparks started flying from it and when I opened my eyes, I was outside of your house."

"So, it accidentally took you to the past instead of to the future, then," he said.

"This isn't the past, this is another _world_. One that's _fake_ _."_

"How could this world possibly by fake?" Link asked. "You've seen it with your own eyes."

"Because _Hyrule isn't real!_ " I said in frustration. "Hyrule is a made-up, fictional place, and you are a made-up, fictional character. You don't exist in reality. This is all virtual. I'm actually standing in one of the rooms of the factory right now, but I'm here in my head, thanks to NEVA."

The girl let out a groan, and came out of Link's shadow again. "So, you think that that oversized bracelet is making you hallucinate that you're in a fake world?"

"Pretty much, yeah," I said.

She held her small hands up in front of her chest, conjured a ball of what looked like orange electricity out of nowhere, and then flung it towards NEVA. NEVA was instantly reduced to nothing but ash, and it slipped through my fingers to the wooden floor.

"There," the shadow girl said. "If that was making you hallucinate, you wouldn't be here anymore. This world is real even if it might be fictional where you come from, and you really are here, so you can stop making up excuses because you don't want to believe it."

I looked down at the ashes at my feet. Tears started to well up in my eyes and my heart started to beat wildly. "Why did you do that?!" I shouted. "That was my only way to get home! I'll be stuck here forever now!"

"...Oops?"

* * *

 **This was also edited 11/10/17, fixing a few sentences that were phrased weird. Also, just gonna go ahead and say here** — **if you ever notice any sort of grammatical mistakes or typos in any of the chapters, feel free to point them out to me! It's super embarrassing to go back and realize I've had a mistake up on a chapter for a year and a half, so please spare me from that embarrassment xP**


	3. Deal

"Oops? _Oops?!_ " I yelled. "You just—you _ruined my life!_ "

"If I hadn't done it, you'd still be yapping on about how you're in a fake world," she said with a shrug.

I had half a mind to reach over and strangle her. What kind of sick bastard could shrug off the fact that they ruined someone's life?! "If you hadn't done it, I could have just told it to take me back home and _it would have_ , you piece of shit!"

"Midna, the least you could do is apologize..." Link gently said.

She crossed her arms. "I'm not apologizing. If she's stuck here forever, that's her own problem, not mine."

"You caused the problem!" I yelled, feeling like I could pass out from fury.

Midna yawned. "You said that if Link told you where you were, you would be on your way. He told you you're in Ordon already, so..."

"That was _before_ you decided to be an asshole and break my belongings!"

"Is there anything you can do to bring it back?" Link asked her.

"It's thousands of ashes on the ground, now," Midna said. "What do you think I'd be able to do about it?"

"If you have the power to just zap it into ashes, you have the power to zap it back!" I said.

"No, I don't. I'm not as powerful as I w—... I'm not that powerful, okay? So you're just gonna have to get used to this world. And you're going to be getting used to it while Link and I leave, like we were going to do before you interrupted everything." Midna dove back down into Link's shadow.

Link sighed. "Vanna, I'm really sorry for what she did, and for how she's acting about it, but I have to go, now. You can go down to the village. Just take the path right across from my house. The mayor's house is the very last one to the left. He's got himself holed up in there right now, but I'm sure he'd come out for someone who needs help."

I was still fuming, but I tried my hardest to keep myself calm. Link didn't deserve to bear the brunt of my anger when he'd done nothing to me. "And what's down the path to the side?"

"If you go down it a bit, you'll get to the Spirit Spring, but don't go any further than that. It's not safe out there." He turned to his door and opened it, then looked back at me. "I doubt it, but if no one in the village is willing to take you in for a while as you're adjusting to being here, you can stay in my house. I'll probably be busy for some time, won't be needing my house much."

He walked outside and I followed after him, closing the door behind me. One after the other, we climbed down the ladder.

"You really trust me?" I asked.

Link stared into my eyes for a few seconds. "Yeah."

I'd just told myself in my head that Link didn't deserve to be treated badly, but I already ran out of the willpower to not unleash my sour mood on him. "You should let me speak with your parents so I can tell them about how you're trusting a stranger you've known for all of five minutes to stay in your house. I bet they'd be _really_ proud."

"They're dead," he said stiffly.

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh... Sorry. I didn't know."

"It's fine. Goodbye."

With that, he walked away, down the path leading away from the village. I wanted to yell after him and ask him why he was going down the dangerous path, and tell him that I really was sorry and that my dad was dead, too, so I knew how he felt, but thinking of my dad made me freeze up. I realized that it didn't matter if my dad was dead, because even if he was alive, I would never get the chance to see him again. I was never going to see anybody from home ever again.

The reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. My lingering anger at Midna faded into anguish. I collapsed to the ground and backed myself up against Link's tree house. I drew my knees up and buried my head between them as I cried.

I would never again cry on my mother's shoulder. I would never get to see Kalina get married next May. I would never get to meet Jaylene's son due to be born next month. I would never again feel the warm embrace of Zi. There were so many things I would never get the chance to do again.

I regretted listening to Mr. Rider. I regretted it so much. I _knew_ I should have trusted my gut and not gone through with it. I _knew_ something bad would happen, but I was so swayed by the idea of finally earning my freedom, and now I would have to pay the price. I finally had the freedom I thought I wanted, at the expense of losing everything and everyone I'd ever loved.

My mind couldn't stop racing over what my family and friends would be thinking, feeling, doing. I wanted so badly to tell them that I was alive and well, not dead like they would most likely presume me to be. I could see my mom and my sisters mourning in a funeral home with no casket, Mr. Rider attending and feeling guilt for my disappearance, Zi grieving the loss of his best friend. My dog would wait endlessly for me to return home, but I never would. Ridiculous as it may sound, that last one made me cry even harder. At least my family and friends had the capacity to _understand_. My dog would never know.

"You all right there, lass?"

I quickly looked up at the sound of the voice. An older, potbellied man with a mustache that strangely looked like tusks was walking towards me. I wiped my eyes and got to my feet.

"...That was a dumb question," he said. "What's got you down?"

It was hard for me to say it, but I responded, "I can't get home."

"Where're you from? As the mayor of this village, I'm required to know the lands surrounding it. I'm sure I could help you find a way home."

"No," I said. "No, you can't. You have no idea..."

"Oh, I'm sure you can get back home. Where are you from? Castle Town? Kakariko Village?"

"I'm not from Hyrule. I'm not from this _world_ but I'm stuck here and there's no way to get back to mine," I said, realizing afterwards that I was much too harsh on the kind man who was only trying to help me.

He was silent for a few moments. "Um... Pray tell, how, exactly, did someone from another ' _world_ ' get here?"

"It doesn't matter. The thing I used to get here was destroyed and it can't be brought back, so..." I paused.

When Link asked if Midna could bring back NEVA, she was about to say that she wasn't as powerful as she _was_ before she cut herself off—meaning that there was a time when she was powerful enough to bring back NEVA. If she got her powers back...

She was my only chance at getting NEVA back so I could go home.

"Thanks for trying to help!" I yelled as I bolted off down the path Link had gone down.

I ran right past the Spirit Spring that Link had warned me not to go past, and kept on going over a bridge. I passed by what looked like another Spirit Spring and went into a short, curvy tunnel. There was a fork in the path just beyond it; I could either go forward into another, much darker, tunnel, or I could go to my right. The path to my right had a little cottage, and a young man sitting in front of it.

"Hey!" I said, running over to him. "Did you see a guy in green go through the tunnel over there, or did he go this way?"

"He just passed through the tunnel about a minute ago," he said. "But you shouldn't follow him, unless you have a lantern! Just because it's daylight doesn't mean it's safe. Even in the day, there are some caves and dank spots around here that get pretty dark. Here, you can take this!" The guy reached behind the rock he was sitting on, and a rusty old lantern was in his hand when he brought it back around. "I'm trying to drum up sales of my lantern oil by giving away free lanterns! It's a business tactic!"

I grabbed the lantern from him. "Well, thanks for the lantern, but I can't buy oil from you. I don't have any money."

He frowned. "Not even a single Rupee?"

"What are—no, I don't have any Rupees. If I need any oil, I'll be sure to find some money so I can come back and buy some from you." ' _But I probably won't_ ,' I added in my head. "Bye."

He said bye to me, and I ran back the way I came, wanting to catch up with Link and Midna before they got too far away. The area just beyond the long tunnel was extremely foggy, and unnatural purple fog clouded the ground. Right through the middle was strangely lacking the purple fog, and Link's footsteps were just barely visible through the cleared route. Another tunnel was beyond the foggy area. As I was beginning to wonder how many more tunnels there could possibly be, I exited it and saw that there were no more tunnels in view. A gigantic tree was just around a bend, but more importantly, I could see that Link was in front of it.

"...Link?" I called as I ran up to him.

I slowed as I neared him. He was kneeling, sword in the ground, with his eyes closed. Midna came out of his shadow.

"Why are you here?" she asked. "Link told you to go talk to the mayor."

"I did talk to the mayor, but I didn't need to," I said. "I need to talk to you."

She groaned. "I told you already, there's nothing I can do about your bracelet."

"But there was a time when you _could_ have down something about it. You started to say that you're not as powerful as you were. I don't know what happened to your powers, but you're _going_ to get them back, and you're gonna use them to bring back NEVA, you hear me?"

"...If I'm bringing back your bracelet, you're going to help me."

"You're the one that broke it!"

"And if you want it back, you're going to help me regain my powers. Nice deal, isn't it? I get my powers, you get your bracelet. What do you say?" she said with a grin.

I clenched and unclenched my fists, considering her ridiculous offer in my head before I let out a sigh. I couldn't miss my chance just because I didn't want to cooperate with her. "How am I helping you get your powers back?"

Midna looked towards the tree. "There's something in the Forest Temple that I need you to get... Link's helping me, too, so once he gets up, that's where you two are going."

"Fine," I said. I looked back down to Link, who was still frozen in a kneeling position. "Uh... Link?"

"I don't really know what's up with him," Midna said. "There was this golden wolf in the way, and it lunged at him. It disappeared, but Link just kinda ... fell like that." She shrugged. "He's not wounded, and he's still breathing, so I'm sure he'll be over it in a minute."

It fell quiet, with the only sounds being the chirping of birds and a gentle breeze moving the trees. After about a minute of the awkward silence, Link let out a little groan, shook his head, and got to his feet. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw me standing next to him.

"She's going to help us," Midna said.

"No, she's not," Link said firmly. "It's dangerous out here."

"Yeah, but... It's dangerous to go alone," I said. I inwardly chuckled at my little joke—I may not have known much about Zelda games, but I did remember that line.

"She's right," Midna said. I was in shock that she was actually backing me up. "It's a lot safer if there's two of you. Besides, we made a deal while you were ... doing whatever you were doing a minute ago. She's going to help us, and then I'm going to help her get her bracelet back so she can go home."

"She needs to go back to the village," Link said. "Vanna, you have _no_ idea what you're getting yourself into."

"I don't care. If it's going to get me home, I'll do it," I said.

"You won't be able to get home if you die! Your life would be in danger. I ain't just sayin' that 'cause I want you off my back, _I mean it_. You could die."

"So could you, but you're still doing it."

"I have a sword and a shield. You have nothing."

I pulled my gun off my belt and pointed it at Link, the tip pressed to his chest. "Laser gun. If I fired this right now, it could kill you in a second."

Link took a step back, eying the gun with an edge of nervousness. "Thought that might be a weapon..." he said quietly. "But what about defense?"

I shrugged and clipped my gun back to my belt. "You've got a shield. I'll stand behind you if I need to."

Link huffed. "... _Fine_. But the second you get hurt, you're going back to Ordon."

I crossed my arms. "What makes you think you're the boss of me? I'll go wherever I please." It felt so liberating to say that, to finally get to deny someone the option of controlling me.

"I'm not saying that to boss you around. I'm saying it for your own safety. And I don't want to feel responsible for the death of a little girl..."

"Little? I'm almost as tall as you are!"

"You're thin."

"So are you."

"But I'm muscular and thin. You're just thin. And really, I wasn't talking about size when I called you little. I meant age. You're like fourteen."

"I'm _seventeen_. How old are you?"

"...Seventeen."

"Can you two shut up and just go to the temple already?" Midna said. "We're wasting time."

I dropped my arms back down to my sides. "To the temple?" I said to Link.

"To the temple," Link grumbled.

* * *

 **Before finishing up chapter 17, I was rereading everything I wrote so far and realized there's a lot I'm not happy with, so again there's been more revisions in this chapter, and more in later chapters (saying that here because I don't feel like writing that I revised a chapter at the end of basically every chapter). There aren't _too_ many differences between the original and new versions of any of the chapters with the exception of chapter one, so people who've read them before might not even notice the difference, but I couldn't stand leaving them the way they were. _Everybody's their own worst critic_ and all, you know.**

 **Original AN: Next chapter starts the game part of the story! Just saying ahead of time, I know a laser gun might seem out of place in Zelda at first, but so is Vanna, and also ... Beamos. Vanna's not going to be OP with the laser gun either, just so you know. And by the way, I apologize for that horrid "it's dangerous to go alone" joke. I'm actually really tired of hearing that line, but I thought it'd make sense for her to say that as it seems like it's the one line from Zelda that people know. It's seriously Zelda's version of "And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."**


	4. The Monkey Temple

The word ' _temple_ ' brought many images to my mind. Most of those images were of ancient, luxurious buildings, meant to be a place of worship to gods just as archaic. The inside of a hollow tree was not one of those images.

Well, I say hollow, but that's not exactly true. The tree was by no means empty. There were two lit torches—because having torches inside of a tree wasn't stupid _at all_ —on either side of the entrance, a wooden cage with a monkey in it up ahead, and behind the caged monkey was a wooden platform with an overgrowth of vines, leading to a round door.

"Do you think there's a Hobbit living back there?" I joked.

"What's a Hobbit?" Link asked.

...I don't know what I expected. "Nothing. I'm gonna try to get that monkey out of the cage."

As I ran ahead, Link hollered for me to be careful. I was in the middle of rolling my eyes when something popped up out of the ground and lunged at me. I let out a shriek and jumped back. The thing was like an oversized blue Venus flytrap, with a big slobbering yellow tongue. Instinctively, I pulled my gun out and shot at it. It was still convulsing from the shock as it was collapsing to the ground. It shriveled up and turned black, and suddenly exploded, leaving nothing behind.

"What ... the ... _fuck?!_ What _was_ that?!" I jumped again when I saw something else coming for me. "What is _that?!_ "

Link ran forward with his sword out, and attacked the monster. I probably would have been impressed by his fighting if I wasn't so caught up in the sight of the monster itself. Its bones protruded from underneath its purple skin, and it had beady green eyes, braided white hair, and large, pointed ears. Its wrinkled face and sparse teeth made him almost look like an old man. A really, really ugly old man. In its right hand, that very nearly dragged against the ground when it was down, was a wooden stick that he tried to use as a sword against Link in their battle.

Unsurprisingly, the monster lost to Link. It screeched loudly before falling onto its back, dead. Much like the Venus flytrap thing had done, it turned black as it shriveled up, and then exploded into nothing. Link twirled his sword in his hand, looking to be showing off, before he sheathed it and turned to me.

"That thing was a Bokoblin, and the plant things are Deku Babas," Link calmly answered.

"Why did they shrivel up and explode?!"

Link shrugged. "That's how evil beings normally decompose, really quick. It's a blessing. Does your world not have...?"

"Abominations like that that _explode_ when they die?" I finished for him as I clipped my gun back to my belt. "No, we don't."

We started to walk up to the caged monkey, who excitedly whooped and clapped at the sight of us. I, however, stopped walking when I noticed that there were huge spiders on the vines behind the cage. I had never been afraid of spiders, but those things were the same size as my head. Link didn't seem to notice them, or if he did he didn't care.

"Not gonna pay any mind to the giant spiders?" I said.

Link looked back at me for a second before starting to fumble around with the monkey's cage. "They're not going to come off the vines, I promise. They're called _Wall_ tulas for a reason. You don't have to stand back there."

I slowly began to approach him at that, but I once again came to a stop. My phone was vibrating on my belt. I quickly pulled it out and looked at it. A text message from Zi was on the screen.

' _W_ _here are you? Dad said he came back to the room in the factory he left you in and you and NEVA were gone_ '

How was I getting signal? And ... why wouldn't I have gone back to the second I left after getting NEVA back?

I gulped. It definitely should have been like I never left at all. I told myself that maybe however long I spent here was how long it would be in my world from my departure to my reappearance, for whatever reason. That was definitely better than my initial thoughts—that me not appearing back right after I left was a sign that I never would—but it was still much less favorable than no time passing at all there while I was away. There was no telling how long it would take for Midna to get her powers back.

' _I know you're not going to believe me, but I'm in Hyrule. Don't ask. I don't know._ _This girl called Midna_ _destroyed_ _NEVA. I'm traveling with her and Link to help her get her powers back so she can fix it._ _I'll be back whenever she does,_ _d_ _on't worry about me_ '

Just as I sent the text, Link finally broke the cage enough so that the monkey could get out. It jumped up and down happily before climbing up the vines, ignoring the spiders on them. It waved its hands at us from the top. Midna came out of Link's shadow.

"Hey! That's the monkey that stole your lantern! Doesn't it look like she's beckoning you?" She giggled. "Aren't you the popular one?"

"Guess we should follow her," Link said as Midna went back into his shadow. I saw him peer at me in the upper corner of my vision, but I was looking at another text from Zi.

' _...Do you remember anyone giving you something that might have been hallucinogenic?_ ' the text read. It was followed by another. ' _Where did you tell NEVA to take you? I'm coming to get you_ '

"Vanna?" Link said.

"Coming," I said. I snapped my phone back to my belt. I'd have to answer Zi after the monkey showed Link and me whatever she wanted to. "That monkey stole your lantern?"

"Kinda. She gave it back, though. You should give me yours. You can't climb with it," he said.

"And you can?" I said, handing it over to him regardless.

He twisted around and opened up a brown pouch attached to the back of his belt, and held the lantern over it. The lantern quickly shrunk down to the size of my pinky, and he dropped it into the pouch. My jaw fell open.

"How the hell did you do that?!" I asked.

"It's a magic pouch," Link casually answered.

I was going to tell him to stop messing with me, that there was no such thing as magic, but I stopped myself. I doubted if even the advanced technology of my home would be able to perform such a feat. The only explanation for it really was magic, as much as I had trouble believing it.

Link killed the two spiders with a slingshot—that I incredulously watched him retrieve from his pouch, amazed as it grew to full size in his hand—and once they fell to the ground, they shriveled up and exploded just like the other monsters had. I simply shook my head this time. Hyrule was _weird_.

Link started climbing up the vines. I grimaced as I watched him go up. If someone like him was climbing them so slowly, then surely I would have trouble climbing them at all. I didn't want him to get to the top and then have to wait for me to get up, though, so I went ahead and started climbing as well. Link did end up having to wait at the top for me, but it didn't look like he minded too much. He had a cheeky grin on his face as I kicked my leg over the edge and pulled myself the rest of the way up.

"Shut up," I grumbled.

"I didn't say anything," he said.

I dusted the dirt off my legs and hands. I'd definitely need to be getting some pants and gloves like him. "You were thinking of it."

The monkey tugged on Link's tunic, and ran to the round door. We followed her, and Link rolled the door over with a grunt, allowing the monkey and I to pass through. He came in after us and let the door roll shut behind him. The room we were in now was like a four-way intersection, with three more rolling doors that were clearly supposed to be accessible from a wooden platform in the middle of the room. _Supposed to be accessible_ were the keywords, though. The gaps between the doors and the platform weren't bridged. Link began to walk up the stairs to the wooden platform, but I stayed put. My eyes were glued to a _ginormous_ spider, with the pattern of a skull on its carapace, hanging above the platform. The spiders in the last room were like ants compared to it.

"There's a giant ass spider up there!" I yelled to get Link's attention before he walked under it.

At my call, Link tilted his head back. The spider lowered itself from its web, landing on the platform with a thud. Link removed his sword from its scabbard and began to fight it. I watched from where I stood for a few seconds before I thought of something. I grabbed my phone and took a picture of Link fighting the spider. There was no way Zi wouldn't believe me if he saw it. I sent the picture to him, along with a text. ' _W_ _asn't drugged._ _I told NEVA to take me 200 years into the future but it_ _took_ _me_ _to_ _1598 Hyrule_ _._ _N_ _o way a normal TPort could get you here to bring me back_ '

I got a new text from him just a few seconds later. ' _Is he swordfighting a giant spider?!_ '

' _Yeah_ _. Listen,_ _I can't keep texting you_ _back_ _,_ _okay? I have to help Link with stuff. Maybe try to see if your dad could make 2 more NEVAs or something to get you here and bring me back home? If he does I'm inside of a giant tree in the woods of Ordon on September 1s_ _t_ _1598._ _I guess I'll find out in a bit if that does end up working out. I'll tell you if it doesn't so your dad doesn't have to keep working for nothing._ '

' _Trying to get you back home isn't nothing,_ _but okay_ _._ _I'm gonna send you updates on what's happening here. No need to respond._ ' Another text came through right after it. ' _Stay safe_.'

I couldn't help but smile at my phone. For how much of a rascal Zi could be, he really was such a sweetheart. I was going to miss him the most while we were out trying to get Midna's powers back.

My head snapped up when I heard a disgusting screeching sound. The spider was arched backwards, writhing around. It, too, shriveled up and exploded. I walked up to Link with the monkey beside me, putting my phone back at the same time.

"Are monsters normal around here?" I asked. I knew that Link spent most Zelda games fighting off monsters, but I was hoping that maybe they weren't actually so rampant.

"They seem to be kinda normal now, depending on where you are, but they didn't use to be normal anywhere. Evil is awakening them."

I had never thought there was truly such a thing as ' _evil_.' What was bad was subjective, and the ' _good versus evil_ ' spiel was nothing more than an idea used in fantasy, to me. I thought that reality simply had too much gray area to assuredly define things as one or the other. Although he had nothing to show me that would physically prove that evil existed, like how he proved magic was real with his pouch, just the way he said the _word_ evil made me start to believe in it.

"Right," I breathed out. "...How are we supposed to get to the other doors?"

Link slowly turned in a circle, scouring the room. I saw his eyes light up after a few seconds. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a lantern—I wasn't sure whose it was, not that it really mattered—and used it to light four torches on each corner of the platform. When the fourth one was lit, more wooden platforms raised from the ground, bridging our way to the door across from the one we came in through.

I was really going to have to get used to things not making any sense here.

The monkey scampered across the newly raised bridge, and clapped at us from the door. We followed her, and once again Link let me and the monkey out before himself. To my surprise, the door led outside. There was a large chasm in front of us, with only a rickety wooden bridge as our way over to the other side. Unreachable from where we stood were even more bridges, that swiveled around every time the wind blew. The monkey ran ahead onto the wooden bridge, and just as she did, a baboon ran up from the other side.

It held up a boomerang, and the smaller monkey let out a squeal as she turned around and started to run back. The baboon threw the boomerang, which emitted what looked like smoke as it flew through the air. It cut right through the ropes of the bridge, making it give in while the small monkey was still trying to run across it. The boomerang flew back to the baboon, and it laughed wildly. He turned around and smacked his ass before running away. Miraculously, the small monkey climbed up the broken bridge and got back to me and Link. She looked around, and sighed in relief when she saw the baboon was nowhere to be found. She then ran back to the door and jumped repeatedly, waving her arms up and down.

Midna popped up out of Link's shadow. "Oh! What's going on?! Has there been a monkey fight?!"

"Another monkey cut the ropes to the bridge while she was on it," I said.

"Oh no! Now we can't go any farther. We might as well go back." She looked over at the monkey. "I don't know what's going on, but it seems like she wants to take you two somewhere, so maybe you should just follow her."

Midna went into Link's shadow, and though I was certain we would have done it regardless of her input, we followed her advice by following the monkey back inside. The monkey jumped up onto a rope that went from the wooden platform over to the doorway to our left. She hung upside-down, grasping the rope with her feet, and motioned for us to come to her with her hands.

"She seriously wants us to jump to her, grab her hands, and then jump over there?" I said.

"Looks like it," Link said. "Do you want to go first or should I?"

I scoffed at that. "You really think this, what, forty pound monkey, that's hanging by her feet, is strong enough to swing either of us over?"

Link ran forward and jumped right at the end of the platform. His hands clasped the hands of the monkey, and he swung back and forth once before he let go. He landed on the other side, then turned and looked at me.

"Yeah, she's strong enough," he said.

I pursed my lips. If the monkey could support Link's weight, she could definitely support mine, but that was never the only cause of my concern. I didn't think I could make the jump to reach the monkey in the first place. Even if I could do that, I was scared I wouldn't make the jump over from the monkey, and I'd end up falling about fifteen feet down. I instinctively reached over to my left arm, only for my fingertips to graze against my turquoise shirt as a rude reminder that I left my TPort at home. There was no way to cheat my way out of having to jump.

Without even thinking about it, I backed up, ran forward, and jumped off the edge of the platform. The monkey caught my outstretched hands, and I swung forward in her grip. I let go of her hands, and I went flying over to the other side. I landed on the balls of my feet and stumbled forward into Link. His hands grabbed my arms, helping me stabilize my balance. He had that same cheeky grin from earlier. Embarrassed as I was, I was glad he had been there. It would have been a lot more embarrassing if I fell over.

"Sorry, didn't mean to bump into you," I mumbled.

He let go of my arms. "It's all right. You would have fallen on your face otherwise."

I resisted the urge to reply that I wouldn't have, even though I agreed that I would have. The monkey jumped down off the rope and walked up to the door, prompting Link to open it. He made a noise of frustration when he saw that it was pitch black in the room beyond the door.

"Reach into my pouch and pull out a lantern, will you?" he asked, sounding slightly strained.

"I don't understand why you can't just let the door close and get it out yourself, but okay," I said as I got behind him.

"These doors are hard to get rolling over to the side. It's better to just keep it here."

I reached around his scabbard and shield, and dug into his pouch, feeling a little awkward as I did so. I felt something glass, some scratchy fabric, and something wooden, which I assumed to be his slingshot, before I felt the rusted metal of a lantern. I pinched my fingers around its tiny handle and pulled it out. It returned to its full size after I did. I twisted the knob on it, making the flame start to burn, and the monkey and I walked into the dark room. Link slipped in after us, and the door rolled shut behind him. With the light of the lantern, we could see that a corridor to our right and a corridor to our left were the only places we could go.

"Left or right?" I asked. "I say left," I said at the same time as Link said "Right."

"What if you go left and I go right?" Link suggested.

"That's how people die in horror movies." Immediately after I spoke, I realized that what I said would mean nothing to him. "Nevermind, you don't know what horror movies are. But seriously, people die when they split up, especially when they go into dark places. We're sticking together, and we're going left."

I walked off to the left, not giving him time to respond, with the monkey at my side. I heard Link let out a resigned sigh before he followed after me.


	5. Five Little Monkeys

"And would you look at that," Midna said. "A dead end with nothing but a few pots. Nice choice, Vanna."

I narrowed my eyes, staring at the pots. "There's something in that one! It's moving!"

I went up to the pot, grabbed it, and flipped it upside down.

I don't know what I expected to be in there, but I definitely wasn't expecting it to be a chicken with an eerie humanoid head. My hand flew to my gun immediately. The creature didn't really look threatening, but I was wary of trusting anything in Hyrule. I looked over to Link, wondering if he was familiar with whatever it was. The way his face was contorted in something between confusion and disgust told me that he wasn't.

The chicken-human-thing got to its feet and shook out its feathers. "Phew! Out at last! Gracious... Once I got in there, I couldn't get myself back out! You were a big help... Thanks!"

"You speak English?!" I said in bewilderment.

It tilted its freaky, long head. "I am speaking Hylian, as are you."

"Okay, sure, call it _Hylian_ , whatever. Why were you in a pot back here?"

"I've been looking for an item and my son, Ooccoo Jr. in here, you see. He must be so scared without his mother, gracious, yes! You must need something here, too. Shall we try working together for a while, fellow adventurers? My name is Ooccoo, and you may not think I look like much, but I can be quite helpful! I can even warp you out of here if you want to leave!"

"Warp?" I said. "Like, get us out instantly?"

She nodded. It would be nice to be able to get out quickly, especially to someone like me who was spoiled by teleportation. I looked up at Link, silently asking for his approval. He shrugged.

"Oh, but you must introduce yourselves if we are to be adventuring together!" Ooccoo said. "Tell me, what are your names?"

"I'm Vanna, that's Link, and that little shadow girl is called Midna. You should probably avoid her."

Midna grunted lightly and disappeared into Link's shadow. I smiled.

"It is good to meet you three, yes!" Ooccoo said. "Link, I do notice that you have a magic pouch! Would you mind if I resided in it as we traverse this temple?"

Link raised an eyebrow but nodded regardless. He held it open, and Ooccoo flew up to it. She shrunk down and fell inside. I got back up to my feet, and Link and I started to walk back the other way.

"... _So_ many weird things here," I said. "And speaking of weird things, what was up with you and that golden wolf earlier?"

Link pursed his lips for a few seconds. "He jumped at me, and the next thing I knew, I was in this snowy realm with a castle... I don't know how else to describe it. The wolf turned into a big undead knight in golden armor, and he taught me a secret sword technique."

"A _secret_ sword technique? How the hell can a sword technique be secret?"

"He said his secrets were only for the one who carries the blood of the hero... No one else figured how to do them on his own, I suppose," Link said.

We came to a stop when we approached a giant spiderweb that kept us from getting out of the corridor. Link unsheathed his sword and slashed at it until it had been broken through enough for us to pass. I ducked through first and headed into the room ahead, with the monkey and Link following behind me. One of those Deku Babas popped out of the ground, and I shot it like I had the last one before looking around the room. There were two more rolling doors on different sides of the room, though one had a lock in front of it. The sides of the room were made accessible by multiple wooden platforms grounded in the waters below. A bridge near the locked door led over to four poles topped with turbines before a gated alcove.

The monkey hopped over the gaps between the wooden platforms. She was clearly heading over to the locked door, but she stopped just before the final gap and cowered in fear. There was another giant spider hanging over the gap. It was smaller than the last one, and strangely had a checkerboard-like pattern on its carapace rather than a creepy skull. Link shot at it with his slingshot, and it descended from its thread. After landing, it promptly walked right off the edge into the water and died. The monkey cheered before jumping over the last gap and running up to the locked door.

"Not the brightest spider or monkey, huh?" I said. "Why don't you go check and see if there's a key somewhere behind that other door, and I stay here with the monkey?"

"You just said that we shouldn't split up," Link said.

I shrugged and jumped over the gap, walking to the monkey. "Yeah, but we were in a dark corridor, and anything could have been in there. This room is lit, and doesn't have any freaks of nature waiting to kill us." Once next to the monkey, I turned back to face Link, and sat down on the dirt. "And the monkey doesn't want to be lonely, so..."

Link chuckled lightly and shook his head. "Uh huh, sure. All right, I'll be back."

He walked through the other door, and I could see out of it enough to tell that it led back outside, making me even more glad I didn't go. I looked at the monkey, who had sat down beside me.

"...You're quite cute for a monkey," I said. "I was always kinda freaked out by monkeys. I never thought you guys were scary or anything, but you look so human and so _not_ human at the same time, you know? Like robots before Mr. Rider managed to make them look indistinguishable from humans. It's just really weird. You're all right, though. You remind me of my dog, Rade." I sighed, missing him already. "...You need a name. How about Rose? You have a rose in your hair, after all. Or fur, I guess."

She smiled at me, and started to play with my hair. She held one long red strand in her left and another in her right, and repeatedly smushed them together, almost like she was trying to braid them.

"You braid with three strands, not two. Not that I really have any room to be coaching you on how to braid, though. I never quite got the hang of it. You'd think I would be good at it, since I was raised in a house of four girls, but I'm honestly shit at it. One time I tried to braid my friend Maddie's hair and it got so tangled that she had to cut a chunk of it out. She didn't talk to me for like, three weeks. I still think that's not fair. I mean, I'd be mad if she did it to me, but I've never been a silent treatment person. Mainly 'cause I only have like four friends so I can't afford to be losing one, but it's just a dick thing to do. Like, she knew what she was getting into when she asked me to braid her hair. I even told her that she may as well stick a full pack of gum in there, but she insisted, so really, whose fault was it?"

"I cannot _believe_ you're talking to a monkey..." I jumped at the voice— _Midna's_ voice.

"Midna?!" I said, looking around. "Where are you?!"

"I hopped over into your shadow," she said as she came out of it. "Yours is more comfortable than Link's. It's also a lot more fun to be in the shadow of someone who talks to monkeys, or talks at all, actually. Link never spoke a word when we were alone together."

"Maybe because you're overbearing?" I said.

"Probably," she agreed. "And, well, he hasn't been in a good mood lately. I bet he would talk to monkeys too if he wasn't so busy sulking because of his girlfriend being kidnapped."

He had a girlfriend? Damn. I knew it shouldn't have sparked the reaction in me that it did—I had _just_ met the guy—but anyone would have been let down to find out he was in a relationship. It was like the age-old woe of finding out your favorite boyband member was gay. You would never have ended up with him anyways, but it still stung.

Just then, the door he had exited rolled open, and he stepped back through. He held up a shiny silver key between two of his fingers, waving it side to side to show it off. He jumped the gap to get over to us. I stood up and brushed the dirt off me.

"That was pretty quick," I said.

He only nodded in response. He placed the key in the lock and turned it, and the lock fell down to the ground. Rose and I walked into the room after Link opened the door, and he followed. The room was round, with a higher level circling the edge of the room that that gradually declined to an open lower one. In the middle of the lower level was a caged monkey atop a large wooden pole.

Rose quickly ran around the higher level, jumping from a bridged gap, and made her way down and to the pole. She climbed it and shook the bars of her friend's cage, desperately trying to free him. When she knew that we were aware of the second monkey's predicament, she climbed back down and looked at us pleadingly. Link and I started to follow after the monkey, him a bit ahead of me. I was busy taking in the scenery of the roofless, earthy room, bathed in the near twilight that shone down from above.

I didn't even have time to snap out of my transfixion when the bridge suddenly collapsed beneath me. I fell down and landed on the balls of my feet, about four yards down, and tumbled forward onto my hands and knees. I squeezed my eyes shut and hissed as pain reverberated up my calves.

"Are you okay?" Link called.

I just barely opened my eyes and looked up. Link had managed to make it across the bridge before it fell, and he was staring down at me with worry. "Fine," I said through my clenched teeth.

I slowly got up, the balls of my feet and my ankles practically screaming at me, as Link raced down the remainder of the decline and came over to me. "I'm all right, really," I reiterated.

Link didn't look like he believed me. Truthfully, the pain was steadily fading away. I knew I'd be fine. The drop wasn't high enough to actually impact my ankles or break my feet or anything. It was just enough to make them feel like that.

Slowly, I walked over to the pole with the caged monkey. I already had an idea what to do to get it down. I just had to shake the pole enough to make the cage tip over. It might hurt the monkey, sure, but it was better than leaving it up there to die. There was only one problem... I wasn't strong enough. I pushed the pole with all of my might, and it didn't even budge. I humphed in frustration and turned to Link.

"Think you're strong enough to shake this and make the cage fall, since you're so much more _muscular_ than me?" I said.

"Of course I'm strong enough," he said. "It's just a wooden pole. I wrangle 500-pound goats for a living."

"You're a goat wrangler?" I asked.

He nodded and roughly shoved the pole, making it wobble. With two more shoves, the cage fell to the ground. It broke on impact, freeing the second monkey. The monkeys started to celebrate, only to be interrupted by god-awful shrieks from up above. Two Bokoblins dropped down into the room. I wanted to kill them with my gun—if only to prove myself capable of something after not being able to move the pole—but Link dispatched them in seconds. All I could think of as I watched him was that he was a _goat wrangler._

"So, what, you're like, part-time hero, part-time goat wrangler?" I asked as he put his sword away.

"I'm not quite a hero..." he said. "I've only been doin' ' _hero stuff_ ' for a couple days now. Before this week, I never fought a single monster. Been a goat wrangler for a few years, though."

"Your fighting skills are pretty damn impressive for someone who only started fighting this week."

"I started training with a sword when I was pretty little. I just never got to put my skills to the test until now."

Midna came out of my shadow and cleared her throat. "Those monkeys are waiting for you two over by where the bridge was. Maybe follow them instead of just standing around talking?"

"Why were you still in my shadow?" I asked.

"Like I said. It's comfier than Link's. Now get going." She went back down and merged with my shadow. "Oh, are you going to name this new monkey, too?"

"I might have named the girl monkey Rose," I explained to Link when he raised an eyebrow at me. I looked down at my shadow. "And maybe I will, Midna. Do you have any name suggestions?"

"He's a _monkey_ ," she said.

"Well, you just missed your chance to name him. His name is Poppy, now."

* * *

It turned out that Rose and Poppy wanted Link and me to save more of their friends. When two more monkeys—Daisy and Tulip—had joined our little brigade, the four of them led us back outside to the bridge that the baboon had destroyed.

"Oh no," I said immediately when we got out there. "No. Nope. Nuh uh. This isn't happening."

I knew what they were going to do before they even did it. As we had traversed the inside of the tree, there were several times when they made us swing from their hands as they hung upside-down on ropes to cross gaps, and that was clearly what they were going to do here. I barely wanted to cross the six feet gaps, twenty feet above ground indoors—there was no way in hell that I was going to jump from monkey to monkey across a thirty-foot long _abyss_.

The monkeys positioned themselves upside-down, equal distances apart along the rope spanning from our side to the other. Poppy was the first in line. He grinned and waved his hands at us. Midna emerged from my shadow, smiling devilishly.

"Ah, are shadow magic and levitation wonderful! I'm _so_ glad I don't have to do that," she said. "Looks like Tulip wants you to cross first, Vanna."

"That's Poppy, and I think he wants Link to go and me to stay behind...?" I said, my voice lowering in volume and raising in pitch with every word.

Midna let out a groan. "No! If I'm bringing back your dumb bracelet, you're going to work for me! You already made Link go get that key by himself! No more sitting around!"

"You've been sitting around in my shadow this whole damned time!"

"Masters sit while servants work!"

"When did you become my master and I become your servant?!" I yelled. "If anything, you should be _my_ servant as payback for what you did to me!"

"There's no need to start a fight," Link intervened. "Just ignore it, Vanna. She said the same thing to me."

"What, and you just took it like a little bitch?" I asked.

"I couldn't exactly respond at the time..." he said. "It doesn't really matter. Getting into fights with each other ain't gonna help anything. It'll only make this harder than it has to be."

"What's making this hard is her and her snarky attitude!"

"I wouldn't be so ' _snarky_ ' if you'd just do what I say!" Midna said.

"Will you just get in my shadow and shut up?!" I said. "I'm already helping you, I don't need your shit!"

She humphed and went back down. "Don't think that I'm listening to your command by doing this. I'm just tired of seeing you. Cross the gap, or you're not getting your bracelet back."

"Don't think that I'm listening to your command by crossing the gap," I shot back.

I definitely was listening to her command. If she hadn't threatened to not bring back NEVA, then I would have never thought about crossing the gap. I gulped before I took a running leap off the edge. Poppy caught my hands, and as soon as I swung forward, I let go and flew into Tulip's hands. Not once on my way across did I even let myself swing back; I wanted to get it over with as quick as possible. After a mere five seconds—the most terrifying five seconds of my life up to then, might I add—I let go of Rose's hands and landed on the opposing cliff, stumbling forward a bit. I walked off to the side, not wanting to be in Link's way. Just a few seconds later, he landed next to me and swiftly fell into a roll. He came out of the roll on his feet.

The monkeys jumped from the rope and went up to the door. Link and I walked behind them, and he opened the door when we got to it. When all of us were in, Link let the door roll shut behind him, and there was a sudden thump. We looked back at the door to find that wooden bars had slammed down in front of it, keeping us from exiting. A screech in the room prompted us to look back around.

It was the baboon from earlier. He was standing atop a wooden pole in the center of the room, surrounded by a number of more poles in a circle. He lifted up his boomerang, still veiled in that black mist, and sent it flying forward. It cut through the stems of what I had learned were Baba Serpents—which were basically bigger, angrier, red Deku Babas—that had been hanging from the ceiling, making them fall to the ground. They started moving themselves forward by chomping their jaws, coming straight for us. The baboon caught the boomerang back in his hands and started laughing maniacally. Like he had done earlier, he turned around and slapped his ass at us.

Link took care of the Baba Serpents, and the four monkeys raced forward. They all climbed the pole that the baboon had jumped over to, and pretty much ambushed him. He flailed around, trying to get them off, but they hung onto him with all of their might. Link ran to the pole, and I realized what he was going to do. Running over, I yelled for the monkeys to watch out before Link slammed into the pole. The monkeys jumped off the baboon for their safety, and he toppled over to the floor with a loud bang.

Now that I was up close to the baboon, I noticed that what I had thought was just part of his head was actually a giant bug clinging to his head. I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the bug and tried to pull it off, thinking that it might be the reason he was so pissed. Link grabbed on and began to pull as well. When the baboon began to come out of his stupor induced by his fall, he started to try to get back up. The monkeys rushed in to help once more, holding him to the ground. His struggles proved to be of help to us; with a rough jerk of his head, the bug came off. We dropped it, and Link stabbed his sword through it. It curled up and exploded.

The baboon vigorously shook the monkeys off him and stood up. He scratched his head and looked around the room, almost like he didn't even know where he was. He slowly turned and saw Link, the monkeys, and me. He let out a squeal and ran away, jumping out of the room through a hole in the wall. His boomerang, that he had left without, started to spin around in place and rose up off the ground. It was shining white, the smoky emanation nowhere to be seen. Glowing wind swirled around it, bringing up orange leaves on the floor.

" _I am the Fairy of Winds who resides in this boomerang_ ," came a soothing female voice. " _You have freed me from evil, and I now have my true power back. Please... Take it with you, use it to aid your quest, and may both my power and my blessing go with you. If you focus power in your boomerang before releasing it, it will unleash the power of wind, aiding you in unforeseen ways._ "

It whirled around the room on its own accord, and came over to us. I reached out and grabbed it, looking at it with incredulity. I peeked over at Link to see his reaction; he looked less mystified and more enthusiastic. He was grinning with his mouth open. Maybe it was normal for Fairies to live inside of otherwise inanimate objects, or maybe this world was so weird that barely anything could shock him. ...Probably the latter.

"Do you know what she means about ' _focusing power_ ' in this?" I asked—there was no point in commenting on the obvious.

Link grabbed it from me. He held it tightly, and wind started to circle it again. "She means to focus power by transferring your own magic power into it," he said.

I blinked a few times. "So, you're a goat-wrangling magic-wielding hero," I tonelessly said.

He winked at me. My breath hitched in my throat.

Link broadly swung his arm and let the boomerang go. It flew up to a turbine above the door and made it spin around. As it spun, the wooden bars that had trapped us in went back up into the wall. The boomerang flew back to Link, and he caught it. The monkeys excitedly went over to the door.

"Looks like even the monkeys are satisfied now," Midna said as she came out of my shadow. "Okay, let's continue combing this place. We already found something good, so let's keep searching places we haven't looked yet."

When we were all back outside, the monkeys ran to the side of the cliff face, and they pointed past a bridge perpendicular to us. Beyond it was a pillar that housed another monkey whose cage was hanging from a tree, and another Bokoblin. A pole in the middle of the bridge had a turbine on top of it, just like the turbine inside. Link threw the boomerang at the turbine. The bridge spun as the turbine did, stopping just as soon as the ends met each cliff face. I shot the Bokoblin when we were at the middle of the bridge. It didn't even see the laser beam coming. I felt kinda bad about it for half a second.

Link threw the boomerang at the thick stands of spider silk that held the cage to a branch of the tree. The cage fell down and broke apart, freeing the monkey. The new monkey celebrated and joined its four friends.

"Well, I guess there are still some monkeys you haven't freed yet!" Midna said. "At this point, you should just save them all and see what you can get for it! I bet they could help us find what we're looking for."

"What exactly are we looking for?" I asked. "You still haven't told me."

"I'll tell you what _I'm_ looking for when we find it..." she said. "But Link here is looking for his kidnapped friends."

"Friend _s?_ " I said.

Link nodded. He looked angry thinking about it. "Monsters raided my village and kidnapped all of the children. I was locked away in a jail cell and I managed to escape after being kidnapped, but everyone else... They could be being held captive anywhere."

Midna cleared her throat. " _You_ managed to escape? I think you're taking a little bit too much credit there..."

"Midna helped me escape. I never would have without her," Link said. "Happy, Midna?"

"Very. Oh, and Vanna?"

"What?" I said.

"What's this monkey called?" she asked, mockery clear in her words.

"...Lotus."

* * *

 **I hope nobody minds me skipping over sections of the dungeon and changing things up a bit. I've always thought that they're incredibly boring to read (and write) if they cover everything exactly as it is in the game. Also, some things in the game just wouldn't make sense in reality, like the fight against Ook. Why would the _bug_ die because of Link slicing _Ook_ in the ass? That aside, I like the monkeys teaming up to help fight him instead of just hanging outside on the rope and waiting.**


	6. Boss Battle

"And there's the last one," I said with a tired sigh. Our search for monkeys came to an end with eight of them saved. Rose, Poppy, Daisy, Tulip, Lotus, Buttercup, and Daffodil were waiting for us in another room. "What should we call you? Lily?"

"That was Ma's name," Link quietly said. I looked at him, and his eyes widened a bit. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud..."

"It's fine," I said. "...Oh, um... I meant to apologize to you earlier today..."

He drew his eyebrows together. "For?"

"For making you upset, about your parents... And I wanted to tell you that I know how you feel. My dad died when I was fourteen."

"You didn't upset me," he said, turning around to leave the room.

I walked beside him. "I didn't?"

Link shook his head. "They've been dead for nine years. I don't get upset at just the mention of them anymore."

I frowned. "But you look kinda mad that I brought them up..."

He shot me a quick glance. "This is just my face."

"Sorry. It's hard to tell what you're feeling when you have one hell of a resting bitch face," I said.

That made him smile a bit. We were quiet the rest of the way back to the room with the monkeys. When Lily joined the group, all eight of them climbed up a thick branch that reached out into the middle of the room, above a large abyss. I felt the same dread come over me that I had felt when we had to jump from monkey to monkey outside. Instead of them being lined up, however, each one was held around the ankles by the hands of the monkey above it. They started to swing back and forth.

"...You go first," I said.

Link nodded. He waited for the monkeys to start to swing towards us, then he ran and jumped. The monkey on the bottom of the chain grabbed Link's hands, and they swung forward. Link let go and landed safely.

I lined myself up with the monkeys. There were several times that I started to run forward a bit, only to stop when I didn't think the timing was right. When I had the timing of their swings down pat in my head, I ran forward and jumped as high and far as I could. My hands were caught, and I was swung over. I let go at the apex of the swing, and landed a few feet in front of where Link had. If I was an old person, my heart would have definitely given out by then.

Right ahead of us was a huge rolling door, with a huge lock in front of it. It had to be the matching lock to the big key Link and I had found in the temple. My face fell when we approached it. From further away, it didn't look to be a problem, but up close it was clear that neither of us would be able to reach the lock, even if we stood on the tips of our toes with our arms all the way up.

"Hey Midna, think you could levitate your way up there and unlock it for us?" I asked.

"I'm a shadow. I can't physically interact with the objects of this world. You two will have to find a way to do this yourselves," she said.

Part of me thought she was just being lazy, wanting me and Link to do everything for her, but it seemed pretty reasonable that she couldn't do it.

"Maybe you can get up on my shoulders?" Link suggested.

I looked up at the lock. That would probably get me high up enough to reach it. I agreed to do it, and Link handed me the key before crouching down on the floor. I situated my legs on either side of his head, trying to ignore how awkward it felt—not only because the situation itself was kinda awkward, but because of his sword and shield and dangling hat. I placed my hands on his shoulders and he placed his on my legs to keep myself steady as he rose. When he was all the way up, I stretched my arms above me and placed the key inside the lock. I twisted it a few times, making part of the lock spin. Link quickly stepped back when the lock started to fall so that it wouldn't fall on him. His movement made me lose my balance and start to fall backwards off him. I ended up with the pits of my knees on his shoulders and my arms wrapped around his neck.

"Let me down!" I demanded.

Link crouched down again, and I got off him. I rubbed the backs of my thighs; the edges of his wooden shield had scratched and dug into them.

"Sorry," he said as he stood up. "We both would have gone down if that lock hit me, and that wouldn't have been pretty."

"I know, but having wood grating your ass and thighs isn't pretty either," I said.

"If only there was something you could wear on your lower half to prevent things like that..."

I glared at him. "It was nice out and I didn't think I'd end up doing anything like I've done today. Just open the door already. Something big has to be in there."

Sidestepping the giant lock, Link got up close to the door and placed his hands on it. He jerked his body over, and the door went rolling open. Another door behind it rolled in the opposite direction. If rolling the first one didn't make the second one automatically roll, we would have been doomed. We ran through when there was a big enough gap between them, and they immediately rolled shut behind us.

The room was the largest we'd been in yet. There were several holes in the wooden walls that purple water cascaded from. The waterfalls fed a purple lake that composed a majority of the room. In it was a twisted tree, and Bomblings stood atop the few thick logs that floated here and there. Two spots in the water were bubbling. They started to bubble more and more until two _huge_ Baba Serpents, big enough to devour a Skulltula whole, burst out. One of them lunged forward at us. I involuntarily let out a shrill scream and pressed myself against the door as much as I could. Thankfully, it couldn't get close enough to attack us. It slowly retreated.

Link pulled out the boomerang, and held it in his hand for a few moments before throwing it. The whirlwind it created picked up one of the Bomblings and brought it over to the head that tried to get us. The serpent grabbed the Bombling in its mouth and chomped down on it as the boomerang made its way back to Link. It chewed a bit before suddenly twitching and throwing its head back. The Bombling must have exploded in its mouth. It sunk down into the water, squirming as it went.

Link repeated the process with the other head. I was about to say ' _T_ _hat was easy,_ ' but I realized that that likely wasn't the end of it when the water started bubbling again. This time, there were three bubbling spots instead of two. The bubbles came up with more intensity as the entire room began to rumble. With a humongous splash, a monster just as humongous came out of the water, along with the two heads again on each side of it. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the stems of the serpents were like its arms—it was all one monster. The monster leaned its main head forward and opened its mouth in three different sections, revealing an outstretched eyeball in place of its tongue. It let out a roar so loud that my hearing aids briefly flickered to white noise and the room rumbled again.

I quickly noticed that things could very well be going downhill fast. The logs and the Bomblings on them had sunk. Without them, there was no way to fight back. We stayed pressed against the door, where we at least couldn't be reached.

"Got any ideas on what to do?" I asked Link, my voice slightly shaking.

Just as he opened his mouth to respond, the sound of a whooping baboon rung through the room. The baboon swung on a rope from one of the holes in the wall to another. He reached into the hole, and his arm came back out with a Bombling.

"We could be saved by a baboon!" Link said.

The baboon grabbed the Bombling with his feet as he swung on the rope again, and Link threw the boomerang at it. The winds of the boomerang led the Bombling from the baboon to the mouth of one of the serpent's heads, and came back to Link. The baboon came out with another Bombling, which Link was intending to use against the other serpent. Instead, before the Bombling could reach the serpent head, the main one ate it. The monster roared and thrashed around in pain before its head fell to the ground with a thump, its eyeball exposed.

Link and I ran forward, having the same idea. Link and I took quick turns attacking, him slashing at the eyeball with his sword and me shooting at it. The monster drew itself back up. A bulge rose in its throat, and it opened its mouth to spew out purple liquid in a large stream. We ran around to avoid the stream until it finally stopped. At that point, the baboon swung back down with another Bombling. Link used the boomerang to make the bomb creature go over to the remaining serpent's head, and the main one didn't intercept it this time. The serpent sunk down under the water after the Bombling exploded in its mouth.

Link sent the next Bombling that came at the main head, and once again it thrashed around before falling and exposing its eyeball. Rather than shooting at the eye this time, I let Link slash at it as I shot inside of the mouth. It roared and reared backwards after Link and I had inflicted a lot of damage to it. It wailed as it wildly flung its head around, slamming into the water and splashing it everywhere. It started to make crackling sounds as it began to shrivel up and turn black. Rather than exploding as soon as it died, it stayed up, hunched over in the air for a few seconds as the room made a transformation. Light flooded in, and all of the water turned light blue.

When it exploded, it wasn't quite like the other explosions that occurred upon the death of an enemy. Small, paper-thin black squares that emitted a black aura—similar to what had cloaked the boomerang—exploded outwards slowly, the hundreds of pieces gently spinning in the air. Suddenly, they all came together to shoot towards us, and they formed a strangely shaped gray hunk. It had circles and irregular lines on it that glowed cyan every few seconds. I wasn't quite sure what it was supposed to be.

Midna came out of her shadow and giggled. "Well done! That's ... what I was looking for." Her ponytail came up over her head, turned orange, and morphed into a big hand that she used to grab the item. She kept on talking like it was nothing. "That's one of three Fused Shadows. They're what the Light Spirit called dark power... Do you remember what that spirit said, Link? About how you had to match the power of the king of shadows? I think the other Light Spirits have the rest... If you two want to know exactly what Fused Shadows are... Well, maybe I'll tell you if you find the other two. I guess you'd better do your best to find them, huh?" She giggled again.

"Wait," I said, "if Link uses the Fused Shadows to help him gain power like the ' _king of shadows_ ,' what about _your_ powers? How do you get yours back?"

She brought her ponytail-hand back to where it was and how it had been, the Fused Shadow disappearing in the process. She turned her body. "The Fused Shadows will help me, too. Let's not waste any more time here when we could be looking for the other ones..."

She floated forward a bit, and with a flick of her wrist, black squares erupted on the ground. They faded into a jagged black shape with glowing lines like the ones on the Fused Shadow. There were circular ripples in the middle that had more little black squares floating up out of it.

Midna went to the center and turned back to us. "I'll get you out of here... Just walk onto this portal."

We did as she said. I wasn't quite ready for what happened next. My vision went black and I felt my body break up into hundreds of paper-thin pieces. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling, either. I was left with a headache when I felt all of the pieces come together again. My sight returned to me slowly. We were now outside in one of the springs that I had passed, and it was night time. It had only been about five when I got to Hyrule. Were we really in the temple for that long? Sudden hunger pangs told me yes, we were.

I turned my head to Link, and he raised up a finger. He was staring straight ahead silently. I followed his line of eyesight, but nothing was there except a little pond with miniature waterfalls and trees behind it. It was beautiful even in the dark of night, but not ignore-someone beautiful.

He lowered his hand after a minute. "Sorry, a Light Spirit was talking to me," Link said. "He told me Hyrule isn't saved yet and that I have to leave the woods and go east, to Eldin. He said my kidnapped friends are being held there..."

I wondered if Hyrule had mental institutes and if I should try to check Link into one. "Yeah, I'm sure he did. So, are we gonna go there in the morning? It is night time after all."

"' _We_ _'_?" he said. "No. No ' _we_.' You can't come with us. It's not safe for you out there."

I furrowed my brows. "Midna said I have to help her, and I'm not going to give up my one and only chance to get NEVA back just because you want to _protect me_ or whatever."

Midna came out of my shadow. "Actually, he's right. It really isn't safe for you, and you can't come with us."

"But—" I started.

"I won't hold it against you," she interrupted. "Those lands are covered in twilight, and if you go into them, you'll turn into a spirit. Link, however, is the Chosen Hero, and that grants him protection from turning into a spirit. And I'm from the Twilight, so I just become my not-shadow self when I'm in it. You wouldn't be able to see either of us, and you'd end up alone and lost. So, Link can leave in the morning, and you can stay in Ordon. We'll come back to get you once he's gotten rid of the twilight in Eldin."


	7. Dawn of the Second Day

I let out a little groan when I woke up. My bed felt so much harder than normal that I wondered if I had fallen off it in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes.

...Right. I was in _Hyrule_.

I was in Hyrule, in Link's house, sleeping on a thick blanket on the wooden floor. After we had come back here last night, we ate a quick meal, and Link put down some blankets and a pillow on the floor for us to sleep on. Even though I was exhausted, I had trouble falling asleep. As I lay there, my thoughts went wild. I'd never played a Zelda game, but I had played enough of other games to know that the first boss was always the easiest. The boss in the Forest Temple was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen, so what could outdo it? What other monsters were out there waiting for us?

Despite how troubling it was getting myself to doze off, my sleep was nice once I finally fell into it. No dreams, as always, and I woke up completely refreshed. I sat up and stretched out, and looked over at Link, where he was peacefully sleeping a few feet away from me. I got off my makeshift bed, sat down at his little table that I had put my belt and stuff on for the night, and I grabbed my phone. I synced it up to my hearing aids and went to put on some music. As I was searching for a song, I suddenly remembered that Zi should have shown up in Ordon yesterday if Mr. Rider had succeeded in making new NEVAs. I chose a random song and sent Zi a text.

' _Sorry if_ _I woke you up_ _, just wanted to let you know that you_ _never showed up_ _yesterday_ _._ _T_ _ell your dad not to bother trying to make the new NEVAs since he clearly won't be able to..._ '

I got a response a minute later. ' _Was up already_ _. My dad_ _says he's_ _still trying anyways_ '

Of course he was still trying. He was more stubborn than me.

' _So,_ _did you have a good first day in Hyrule?_ ' read the next text I got from him.

' _It was terrible. There were so many monsters and so many draining things we had to do. Didn't help that I was stuck with asswipe Midna. Literally the only good thing about it was Link cuz he's_ _cute_ '

'S _end me a picture of his faaace! I'll kill you if you don't. Love you_ _Vannyboo_ '

' _Love you too_ _Zizi_ _but h_ _e's sleeping right now_ '

' _So?_ '

' _Zi._ '

' _You creepshotted him yesterday when he was fighting that spider, don_ _'_ _t act all high and mighty_ '

' _But you wouldn't have believed that I wasn't on_ _drugs_ _if I hadn't_ '

' _Well I won't believe you that Link is_ _cute_ _if_ _you_ _don't send me a picture of his face! I was doing some research on the game and_ _he_ _looked pretty_ _cute_ _in it_ _but I need to see with my own eyes_ '

' _Send me a pic of_ _him_ _in the game,_ _I'll let you know how he compares_ ' About a half a minute after sending the text I received a picture. ' _P_ _retty_ _spot on, ignoring the_ _giant_ _eyes_ '

' _Good but_ _you're_ _still sending me a pic later_ _. So while I was researching, I found some stuff I thought you'd like to know._ _You're in the game called Twilight Princess,_ _from 2006_ _. If you're going along with Link, that means you're going to have to go through 7 temples, plus 2 more places that are kinda temples but_ _kinda_ _not. You'll have to fight a boss in each one. Diababa in the Forest Temple, Fyrus in the Goron Mines, Morpheel in the Lakebed Temple, Stallord in the Arbiter's Grounds, Blizzeta in the Snowpeak Ruins, Armogohma in the Temple of Time, and Argorok in the City in the Sky. Then there's Zant_ _in the Palace of Twilight_ _and Ganon_ _dorf_ _in_ _Hyrule Castle_ _. When you get to the_ _bosses_ _you should tell me. I_ _can_ _send you some strats to help you out, k?_ '

Reading the names of the bosses felt like reading something in a completely different language. The only one that rung a bell was Ganondorf. ' _W_ _e_ _defeated Diababa last night,_ _but I think it might be a little bit before we get to Fyrus cuz Link has to go do some other stuff. You can go ahead and send_ _"strats"_ _to me if_ _yo_ _u want._ '

' _And if I don't want?_ '

' _Then I hate you._ '

' _Ouch :(_ '

Zi and I continued texting back and forth, talking about anything and everything. It was only when the rumblings of my stomach started to become painful that I looked at the time and realized we had been texting for over two hours, and Link _still_ wasn't awake. I got up and went over to the hearth to try to warm up the remainder of the stew we ate last night by myself. After a few minutes of vigorously rubbing sticks together to try to start a fire, I was tapped on the shoulder. I dropped the sticks as I jumped. I looked behind me to see an amused Link with tousled hair and sleepy eyes. I hadn't heard him coming because of my music. I went over to my phone on the table and paused it, making Link give me a confused look.

"Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I was using this to listen to music," I said, tapping it. The look on his face didn't go away. "It's high-tech, you wouldn't get it. Tech is short for technology, by the way. Anyways. Did you get enough sleep?"

"I could've slept for a few more hours if Midna hadn't woke me up," Link said, his voice raspy. He cleared his throat. "She said we should get going soon, and that she tried to talk to you but it was like you couldn't hear her. She also said you were too much of an idiot to get the fire going..."

I crossed my arms. "I'm not an idiot. My people have just advanced beyond the stone age and we don't need to light fires to warm up and cook food anymore. If anyone's an idiot..."

Link raised his hands defensively. "I wasn't sayin' I agreed with her. I was just relaying what she said. Besides, fires can be hard to start even for people who know how to do it. I'm quite lucky..." He crouched in front of the hearth and reached his left hand into it, and suddenly one of the logs caught fire. Link smiled up at me. "Magic power. I was never properly trained, so I can't do too much, but I can at least do things like focus it into weapons for stronger attacks and start a little fire with it."

"Can you show me it up close? The fire-making magic?" I asked.

Link stood, held up his left hand, and pointed up his index finger. My jaw dropped as a small flame flickered above it. While that was the most awesome thing I'd ever seen someone do, my eyes were drawn down to the back of Link's hand. He had a birthmark on it that was one triangle comprised of three smaller ones. He must have noticed me looking at it, because he let the flame stop burning and he curled his pointer finger in with the rest of them. He brought his hand down and held it out in the same way that someone expecting a fist bump would, and he looked down at it.

"D'you think my birthmark is weird?" he asked.

"Well, yeah," I said. "Normally birthmarks are little blobs that have no real shape. That thing almost looks like a tattoo."

"Really? I've only other seen one other birthmark, so I never knew if mine actually was weird or not. That one was blob-ish, but I thought maybe we were both just weird, having little areas of our skin be darker for no reason... But not knowing what's really normal is just one of the things you deal with if you live in a village with only fourteen people."

My eyes widened. "Only fourteen people?"

Link nodded. "Yeah. We used to have a few more, but..." He stopped himself, frowning for a second. Something must have happened to them; I guessed whatever happened was what ended his parents' lives, or the lives of others he was close to. "I had only met twenty people in my life before all this started. I've met twenty-three now that I've been out of Ordon."

"Midna and I are two of the only people you've ever met that aren't from Ordon?" I asked, sadness in my voice. Even as someone who never had the biggest group of friends or the biggest family, I couldn't imagine the isolation of living knowing only twenty-some people.

He nodded again, but he didn't look upset about it at all. "There are two others. Princess Zelda, and Coro, that boy who lives in the woods and sells lantern oil."

"Isn't Coro from Ordon?"

"I ain't sure where he's from, but he's not from here. He just lives nearby Ordon."

"I thought we were in Ordon this whole time."

"Once you get past the bridge, you're in Faron's territory." He went over to his counter and lit another, smaller fireplace underneath part of it, and sat a kettle on top.

"So, there are other settlements in Hyrule, right? With more people?" I asked.

"Yeah. Up north there's Castle Town, to the east is Kakariko Village, and there are other settlements here and there that I don't know by name. I've never been to them, but I hear Castle Town and Kakariko are pretty big. My ma and pops visited Castle Town a lot, bringing produce there an' all, and they always used to tell me stories about how many people lived there. They said that on the busiest days, you could barely walk through the streets, and barely hear your voice when you spoke."

"Sounds like my home," I said as I sat back down at the table. "There are 300,000 people in my city."

Link's eyes shot over to me, and he stared at me blankly for a few seconds. "Did you misspeak?"

"No, there are 300,000 people in my city," I said, smiling at his disbelief. It was nice to be on the other side, getting to see him react to something he never thought was possible. I could see the ' _How?_ ' written on his face. "I think my world has probably been around longer than yours, so we've had more time to grow our population." I shrugged. "So, I take it Hyrule's pretty small then, huh?"

"I don't know how many people live in Hyrule exactly, but I know it's got less than _300,000_. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably got less than 1,000 people."

I almost snorted. "I went to school with 1,000 other students." I was suddenly glad that I had finished my required classes before summer break, and sad that there was a chance I wouldn't be back home in time to attend my graduation in December.

"Ah, you went to school?" he asked.

"You didn't?" I slowly asked back.

"No. I was taught by my parents, and then by the other adults in my village after they died. We don't have a proper school down here. In this world, schools are really just for the children of rich families that live in Castle Town."

"...I don't know if I should say that that sucks or not," I said with a laugh. "In my world, schools are pretty much free, and kids are required to attend for twelve years."

"I don't know if I should say _that_ sucks or not," Link said. "Are you even a kid anymore when you finish?"

"Technically you still are, yeah. You start 1st grade at five years old, and advance to the next grade at the beginning of every year until you graduate from 12th grade at seventeen. Does that make sense?" I said. He nodded. "Good. Trust me when I say it used to make a _lot_ less sense."

"I understand what you're saying, but to be honest with ya, it doesn't really make sense to me at all. I guess you just need to know a lot of stuff in," he waved his hand, "uh, whatever country you come from?"

"The United States of America. Sometimes it's called the USA or the US, but mostly we just call it America. And... Well, honestly, when you get to the later years, a lot of it is unnecessary stuff that you don't really need to know to get along in life. Like, I never learned what to do if I were to end up in some weird alternate universe with magic and man-eating monsters."

"I bet you're real smart. You can figure out what to do on your own," Link said as he retrieved two bowls and two teacups. He put teabags—which I was impressed that they had—in the cups.

I silently took the compliment, rather than saying what I was really thinking; I may have been smart in _my_ world, but that didn't mean anything here. I didn't need to know calculus, I needed to know how to light fires and prepare food that wasn't from a box with directions on it. I needed to know how to fight, how to defend myself, how to _survive_. I wouldn't get by everything with just the pull of a trigger.

Link ladled the stew into the bowls, poured water from the kettle into the teacups, and took several quick trips to bring the bowls, cups, and utensils over. I thanked him as he sat down. I picked up my spoon and was about to go ahead and dig into the stew when I realized that his head was bowed and his eyes were closed. I thought for a second that maybe he had fallen asleep—he fell asleep like _two_ seconds after he lay down last night—but then it dawned on me that he was praying. Awkward as I felt about just sitting there while he prayed, I decided to let him finish before eating, letting my spoon hover above my bowl in an attempt to not be disrespectful. He raised his head and opened his eyes after a few moments, and wasted no time shoveling the stew into his mouth.

"You eat like a _pig_ ," I said.

"Whah? Ah hungwy!" he said with his mouth completely full, giving me an innocent look. Some juice ran down his chin, and he wiped it off on the back of his hand as he swallowed. "A man's gotta eat, and if he has a gal like Midna hiding in his shadow that enjoys rushing him, then he's gotta eat fast."

"I rush you for your own good," Midna said, not showing herself. "The twilight continues to spread every second. _I_ wouldn't really mind it, but I don't think you'd like it if this whole world became cloaked in twilight, now would you?"

There was that word again. Twilight. The stuff that supposedly turned people into spirits, that Midna was from. It was even in the title of the game that followed the events currently happening in Hyrule.

"Midna, who's the Twilight Princess?" I asked out of curiosity before finally taking a bite of my food.

Link perked up. "She called Zelda the Twilight Princess the other day. Zelda's trapped in the twilight, like everyone else in it, and she's the Princess of Hyrule."

Given that Midna stayed silent, it seemed that she agreed with what Link said. It made enough sense to me. If the title of the series was the Legend of Zelda, then it was natural for the subtitle to also be about her.

Link and I stayed silent, too, while we ate—or, we didn't _talk_ anymore, at least. Link was far from silent as he gobbled down his stew. He finished it before I was even halfway done mine, then finished his tea in one go. I could tell that he burned his tongue by doing that, but he brushed it off. He got up and placed the bowl and cup in his sink. Over his white undershirt and tan pants that he had slept in, he put back on the clothes he discarded last night. I scrunched up my nose when I saw him slipping his boots onto his bare feet.

"Feel free to hang around my house, sleep here, read some of my books..." Link trailed off. "Maybe just don't use the hearths?"

"What about food, though?" I asked. "Even if I did use them, what would I eat?"

"Go down to the village. They'll keep you fed. They'd ... probably enjoy the company, now. With the kids being gone and everything..."

"I'd enjoy the company, too," I said. I grabbed my phone. "Um, could I take a picture of you before you go?"

"Sure. I haven't gotten a chance to see how I look in this outfit." Link finished his outfit by putting his hat on, and began to clear things off a wooden storage chest. Midna groaned. "It'll only take a few seconds, Midna," he said.

"What are you doing? Do you want to sit on that chest while I take the picture or something?" I asked as I stood up.

"I have my pictograph box in here. I'm getting it out for you."

I guessed that ' _pictograph box_ ' was what they called cameras. "I have my own."

He stopped moving things, and looked back at me with his eyebrows close together. "Where? All I saw that you had on you was your weapon and your music-listening thing."

"My music-listening thing is also a picture-taking thing," I said, waving it. I opened the camera app and held it up. "Smile?"

He mustered a just-barely-there smile, and I took the picture. As I was walking over to him with my phone in hand, he said, "You already took it?"

"Yeah." I held the phone out to him. "Here. You can double tap to bring up a little bar that'll let you zoom in to get a closer look if you slide your finger up it. Once it's zoomed in, you can move your finger across the screen to look at different areas of the picture. I can't print the picture from that, if you were gonna ask."

Link grabbed my phone with excessive caution, and awkwardly tried to hold it the same way he saw me holding it earlier. He gently tapped the screen with his finger, zoomed in, and panned around before handing it back. "Thanks. I thought I'd look worse after yesterday..."

"You'd look better in the twilight," Midna said under her breath.

"All right, all right, I'm going," Link said. "See you soon, Ilia."

"Ilia?" I repeated.

Link's eyes got big. "Did I say Ilia...?" he asked. I nodded. "Sorry. I don't know why I did. Bye, Vanna."

"Bye, Link," I said as he walked towards the door.

He shut it behind him, and I stood in the room motionlessly for a few moments before I headed back to the table to finish my stew. As I was walking, I sent Zi the picture of Link, with an accompanying text: ' _I take your request for a face pic and raise you a full body pic. You're welcome._ '

* * *

I stayed in Link's house for some time after I finished my stew, just taking everything in. I felt like I learned a lot more about him from looking around his house than I had from talking to him. I might not have found out that he was a seventeen-year-old goat-wrangling magic-wielding tea-drinking hero by the items in his house, but I did find out that he was a glasses-wearing book nerd that enjoyed writing and taking pictures and didn't seem to care too much for tidiness, among some other things. Though I felt slightly bad for messing around with some of his stuff, my curiosity got the better of me. After finding thin, rectangular, brown glasses near one of the forty-two books he scattered about his house—I counted—I slipped them onto my face, only to promptly take them off because of how blurry they made my vision. My inspection of the house led me up to one of the lofts, where there was a desk with some pencils in a cup, a dip pen, an ink bowl, a shirt, some cloth, and most interestingly, a worn book that looked different from the rest. I flipped the book open to the first page, where there were four handwritten letters that I had never seen before. It only took a few seconds for me to figure out what they said— _Link_.

Admittedly, I went on to the next page, despite the feeling that I had that it was his diary. I probably wouldn't have actually read it anyways, but I quickly realized that I couldn't even if I wanted to. While ' _Link_ ' was easy enough to be translated, there was no way I could have read one page written in that alphabet, despite its similarities to the Latin one. I closed his diary, and opened up the next book I found, wondering if maybe Link had come up with his own secret alphabet or something. It turned out that that wasn't the case. The alphabet he had written in had to be the one used by everyone in this world, and I let out a sigh when I found this out. If I couldn't read his books, then I pretty much had nothing to do in his house.

I left Link's house and went to the village about an hour after he left. Even though I knew only thirteen other people lived there, I was still shocked by just how small it was. Five houses were situated in a lush valley, with a lake off to the left of them. A dirt path led right through the village and up a hill that I couldn't see over. I was planning to go see the mayor first, but I ended up following the path to see what was over the hill.

My heart raced faster with every step I took, not because I thought there would be something dangerous back there, but because I wasn't used to the freedom of going places by myself. If I wasn't in such a state of shock yesterday, I would have felt what I was feeling now, but even stronger, running through the woods to catch up with Midna and Link. It wasn't a bad feeling though; I wasn't particularly nervous, and I wasn't scared. It was just exhilarating, to the point of being overwhelming, lame as that may sound.

When I got to the top of the hill and saw that it was just a farmhouse and pasture at the end of the path, I turned and started to walk back down. I went to the house that Link said was the mayor's and knocked. The door clicked and opened ten seconds later to reveal the mayor.

"Ah, it's you," he said.

"Yeah, it's me. Sorry about running off yesterday. So, um, it turns out that I can actually get back to my home, but... Well, I was with Link yesterday—"

"You were?" the mayor interrupted. "How was he? When I heard that Link had just left town yesterday, I came out to his house to look for him, but he was gone and only you were there."

"He's fine. We spent last night at his house, and he left about an hour ago. He said he'll be back soon, and then we're going to go look for the kidnapped children together." Maybe that was a bit of a lie on my part, seeing as I was really going along to look for the Fused Shadows for Midna, but I did want to help Link look for his friends, too. "He told me I could stay at his house and come visit the village some while he was away."

The mayor let out a disgruntled sigh. "Shame I didn't get to see the lad, but it's good to know he's doing well. I don't believe I got the chance to properly introduce myself or this village to you. My name is Bo, and I'm the mayor here in Ordon Village. We've been seeing rough times recently, so I'm sure a visitor would help bring some liveliness back into our little community." He held his hand out. "What's your name?"

"Vanna," I said, shaking his hand.

"Vanna, welcome to Ordon Village. Come on now, let me give you a tour of our little village."

* * *

 **Sorry to those of you who hate filler-y chapters. I just felt that this chapter, while nothing major plot-wise happened in it, was necessary. I really want to build up Vanna's relationships with Link and Midna and show how she's coping with being in Hyrule (or Ordona, technically). To me, those things are as important as action, even if they don't necessarily move the plot along. More plot-wise important things will be happening in the next one.**

 **I was planning on finishing up the last little bit of this chapter yesterday since it was just about done, aaand then Breath of the Wild. I honestly thought I was going to be disappointed by it (mainly because I hated all of the rumors floating around about it at the time) but now that I've seen it I'm so excited for it that I'm gonna explooode! Seriously, it was hard to finish this chapter because my brain was just breathofthewildbreathofthewildbreathofthewild. I don't know how I'm supposed to wait until next year to play it ; - ; Now I really need to get The Otherworldly Traveler done before this year is over** **( _Dec 2016 edit: HAHAHAHA not happening) [Nov 2017 edit: HAHAHAHAHA]_** **, because I swear when the game comes out nobody will be seeing me for months lol.**


	8. Goats and a Ghost

My second day in Hyrule/Ordon—I still didn't quite understand if Ordon was actually part of Hyrule or not, but the way I was seeing it was that Ordon was to Hyrule as Puerto Rico was to America—went by quite well. I met everyone currently living in Ordon, though some of them only briefly. There were three couples, then the mayor, and a seventeen-year-old young man named Fado. With the exception of a woman named Uli, they were ... not the prettiest people I'd ever seen, and I pitied Ordon's gene pool. I spent most of the day with either Fado, or Uli and her husband Rusl. Those three were the most bearable. The other two couples and the mayor were mopey, depressed people that I couldn't stand to be around for too long, despite the fact that I understood why they were like that. Seeing them miss their children so much made me miss my family.

My third day I mostly spent with Uli. Rusl, even though he had been badly injured when the village was raided just days ago, went off to search for the kids, and I didn't want the very pregnant Uli to be alone. She said she was only seven months along, but she was already having somewhat frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions and she looked like she could pop at any moment. Though it was clear she missed her son Colin deeply and was worried for his well-being, she stayed serene and collected. I found it very calming to be in her presence. Later that day I decided to go visit the ranch, and Uli let me borrow a pair of grayish-blue pants that she couldn't wear anymore with her belly, since I was still running around in my bodysuit. I helped Fado round up the goats at night time. It was fun at first but quickly became agitating when the goats decided they didn't want to listen. Fado told me that Link and his horse, Epona, could do it in under a minute, and I could barely believe him. It took the two of us nearly half an hour to get the last of the goats inside.

My fourth day I spent with both Uli and Fado on the ranch, lounging around on the pasture and hanging out with the goats. I was just amazed by those things. They were bigger than any goat I'd ever seen in America, and they were blue, with horns—more like horn—that somehow formed in a circle. I fell in love with one of the baby goats, and it seemed to fall in love with me too, staying near me for most of the day. I was upset when I had to leave it for the night, though I was happy to not be smelling dirty goats and their droppings any longer. Uli let me take a bath in her tub, which I ended up regretting. I had to use water from the lake, which was cold with autumn being just around the corner. It was made worse by the fact that I couldn't even get a hair tie to hold it up with, because nobody in Ordon had hair past their shoulders. I tried to put it up in a bun without a tie, but it continually fell down every time I moved my head. I gave up and resigned to the shivers that came from letting my wet hair hang against my back.

My fifth day, I was woken up in the early hours of the morning by a knock on Link's door. I tried to fix my tangled and still damp hair as I walked up to it. I nearly jumped back when I opened the door. On the little deck was a pointy-eared man wearing a tank top and short shorts, with heavily bagged eyes that were open as wide as humanly possible. He had on a tall red hat, and a pole with a short red flag was on his back. He held a tan envelope.

"Hey! I am the postman. I have come to deliver a letter for a Miss Vanna," he said.

"That would be me..."

"It is a letter from Link." He handed it to me and hummed a short jingle. "My business is concluded! Onward to mail!"

The postman leapt off the deck and ran away, making a little noise with every step he took. I shook my head and looked down at the envelope. It had a word in Hylian text written on the front, that looked like ' _il_ _H_ _hh_ _H_ ' to me at first. I remembered that I had seen the same _h_ in Link's name in his diary. After realizing that those _h_ 's were really _n_ 's, I saw it. It was my name. What I viewed as _il_ was a _V_ , and the _H_ 's were _a_ 's. It should have been obvious that it was my name from the start, but I had never received a physical letter in my life. I opened up the letter, not knowing why. Even ignoring the fact that I couldn't read the alphabet, a lot of the letters were smeared. After trying to read the first three words—' _I qap Pld_ '—I gave up and decided to get someone to translate it for me. Bo had told me he always woke early, so I went over to his house and hoped that he really was awake.

His door opened after a few seconds. "Good morning, Vanna. Is something wrong?"

"Link sent me a letter, but I can't read Hylian, and it's smudged up. I was wondering if you could read it to me...?" I said, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"A letter from Link? This is great! I was starting to worry for the lad. Come on in." The mayor moved over to let me inside and closed the door behind us. He took the letter from my hand and chuckled. "The woes of a left-handed person, eh?" He cleared his throat. "' _I got rid of the twilight in Eldin. All of the_ _little kids_ _are in Kakariko Village, and they're safe. I was going to come back down to Ordon_ _as soon as possible_ _, but they wanted me to stay with them for a while_ _. You can tell all of the parents except_ _Mayor_ _Bo that their children are fine so they don't have to worry any longer. Let them know I'm with the kids, but they can't come back yet since there's no_ _wagon_ _in Kakariko that can safely get them home._ _Link._ '"

Bo's face had fallen by the time he finished reading the letter. He looked away.

"Sorry about your kid..." I said.

He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, shaking his head. "She's sixteen, you know, and the other kids are all from four to ten, so if they're fine, I'm sure Ilia will be fine..." It was clear that he didn't believe what he was saying.

So Ilia had to be Link's girlfriend. I suppressed a shudder; if this man was her dad, what the hell did she look like? Hopefully more like her mother, but given that Uli was the only attractive Ordonian woman I'd seen, maybe it was actually better if she looked like her dad. "I'm sure she'll be fine, too," I said. "If Link could find the younger kids, there's no doubt he'll find her. Especially since, you know... Their relationship. I bet he won't stop until he's found her."

"Just have to pray that when he does find her, she'll be all right." I could see tears welling up in his beady little eyes.

I patted his arm. "She will be. I guess I'll go now. Thanks for reading the letter to me."

Bo handed it back over and rubbed his eyes. "You're welcome. Don't worry yourself about tellin' the other folks about their kids. I'll do it later when they're all up."

We said our goodbyes, and I left his house. I slowly paced through the village, my head leaning back and eyes scanning the pinks and yellows that filled the morning sky. Ordon had such pretty sunrises and sunsets. I decided to enjoy the sunrise while taking a walk, since I didn't have much else to do. I walked down the path back to Link's house, and then down the sunken lane that lead to Faron. The raised earth on either side of the lane had trees on it, blocking the view overhead, so I went into the spring where I could get a good view. The sound of heavy breathing off to the side of the spring made me still. I ever-so-slowly turned my head.

In an alcove was a glowing golden wolf, with a glowing red eye.

I turned to face it fully. "You're the wolf that brought Link into that snowy realm and taught him a ' _secret sword technique_ ,' aren't you?"

The wolf nodded.

A _wolf_ understood me. What was next? Was a tree going to start talking to me?

"Well... What are you doing here?" I asked. "Link's in Kakariko Village."

The wolf stood and started to walk towards me. I took a few steps back, into the waters of the spring. My heart started to beat heavier. I thought the wolf was supposed to be nice.

"I don't want any trouble! I was just telling you that he's not—!"

I let out a scream as the wolf pounced at me.

My vision went white, and I never felt him come into contact with me. The unending whiteness before me faded into what must have been the same snowy realm the wolf took Link to. The wolf was sitting several feet in front of me wagging his fluffy tail back and forth. Far behind him were white towers with blue roofs that looked like they met together at the base of a castle dozens of feet beneath the snow. Though snowflakes blew through the air, it wasn't cold at all. I didn't even feel the wind.

The wolf tilted his head back and howled, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone. In his place was a big undead knight, just like Link spoke of. His head was a skull with a glowing red orb in one of the sockets. The rest of his body looked relatively normal, ignoring his prominent ribcage and the fact that it was colorless and see-through. He faded in and out of varying levels of transparency while his golden armor and weaponry stayed solid.

He got into a battle stance, sword and shield at the ready. I pulled my gun out and held it towards him, my finger hovering over the trigger. He broadly swung his sword, making my gun fly right out of my hands and land some twenty feet to my right.

"Do you truly think such a weapon will be of help to you here?" he said in a deep echoing voice.

"I already killed a couple things with it, so ... a little?" I said.

He quickly swung his sword down on me, making me fall onto my back. "No. Look how fast and easily I knocked it out of your hands. If that were to happen to you in a battle against an enemy—and it undoubtedly would—then your life would come to an end in an instant. Going against fiends without a sword and shield on you is asking for death."

I lay on my back for a few seconds, taking deep breaths as the pain went away. I shakily raised a hand to where his sword collided with my shoulder. I felt no blood, no tear in my clothes, no sign that he had attacked me at all. I slowly got up, my body still quivering. "You could have just said that..."

"A demonstration makes a better point than words."

I glared at him. Who the hell stabs someone just to prove a point? "I _already knew_ that I couldn't survive with just a gun here. I know that there have to be heavily-armored or thick-skinned enemies that a laser will do nothing against. But I don't have anything else, and you attacking me isn't going to change that."

"Go to the basement of Link's house and search the crates. Return to me once you've found a sword and a shield."

Before I could respond, my vision faded into white, and then to black. I opened my eyes and blinked several times in quick succession; I was sitting on my legs in the spring, and the golden wolf was sitting in front of me. I groaned as I stood up. Water had flooded into my boots, the pants Uli had given me were all wet, and so was the bottom of my bodysuit. I took off my boots, socks, and pants, and put them in the grass to dry before leaving for Link's house, hoping none of the Ordonians would see me on the way, because it seriously looked like I had pissed myself. I had to use my phone for light in the basement because Link took both of our lanterns with him. I groaned again when I saw that his basement had racks on two sides that were _filled_ with crates.

Fifteen crates later, I hit the jackpot. I found a sword, shield, and baldric in one of the crates, and I took them out. I looked in the crate to see if there was maybe anything else that could be of use to me, but it didn't seem like it at first. There was a little green dress, or tunic I supposed, some small brown boots, and a red belt. I lifted up the tunic and smiled; there was a magic pouch underneath it. I snatched it up, and just to make sure it was actually magic and not just a pouch, I dropped my phone inside of it. My phone shrunk down to a minuscule size, the flashlight sending out only a tiny beam of light. My work done, I got my phone back out, put the crate away, and went back up to the main floor with my new items.

I checked out my things on the main floor since I could get a good look at them there. They were all quite dusty. The metal shield had shiny rims and decals, a blue base, a red bird, and a small white section with a red design on it, but most interestingly it had a yellow decal identical to the shape of Link's birthmark. I wondered if it was specially made for him when he was younger and he forgot about it. The sword, once pulled out of its mostly brown scabbard, looked a lot cooler than I thought it would. The blade had three large golden diamonds on each side, while the grip and part of the curved cross-guards were red. I put everything on—with a decent amount of trouble, mostly from adjusting the baldric to fit me—and left Link's house satisfied.

The wolf was waiting in the alcove again when I got back to the spring. Like the last time, he pounced at me, we ended up in the snowy realm, and he turned into an undead knight.

"You look much more ready to take on the perils of this world now," he said.

"But I'm not really, considering I've got no clue how to actually use what I got," I said. "How did you even _know_ that there was a sword and shield in one of the like twenty wooden crates in Link's basement?"

"I put them there myself. The sword and shield you have were mine in my younger days of life."

That made me feel weird. I was using a dead person's stuff. "Wait. Are you ... his dad?"

"He is my great-great-grandson." He got into a battle stance again. "If you are to be fighting alongside him, you must learn how to fight. Draw your sword!"

* * *

It simultaneously felt like I was in the realm for just minutes, and hours at the same time. It turned out that the latter was correct. When I left the realm, the sky was still pinks and yellows, but it was from the onset of dusk, not dawn. I had been in there the entire day. The Hero's Shade—which was what he told me to call him when I asked for his name—taught me the basics of swordfighting; the horizontal slash, the vertical slash, the diagonal slash, the stab, the spin attack, and the jump attack. The slashes and the stab weren't too bad, but the spin attack and jump attack made me _beyond_ frustrated, especially the jump attack. I was certain that out of all my time in there, majority of it was spent trying to perform an at least _adequate_ jump attack. I was so excited when I finally timed it just right and sent the Hero's Shade onto his back, though part of me felt like he only fell backwards to make me feel good. He told me to return the next day to practice with him more.

I felt like I was hit by a train as soon as I was out of the realm. Exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and aches that I hadn't felt while I was in there washed over me. Wanting to eat and get to bed as soon as possible, I put back on my still wet clothes and went down the path to the village. I dropped my baldric off in Link's house quickly. Fado was just heading into his house when I got to the main part of the village.

"Vanna!" he said. "Haven't seen you all day! I was just about to start makin' my dinner. Do you wanna come in and have some with me?"

I accepted his offer and followed him into his house. He started grabbing things off shelves as I slumped down in a chair.

"Not sure where you were, but you missed a good day today. Feels like life is back in the village, knowin' that the tots are safe. I thought you mighta gotten back home," he said.

"Nah. I wish..."

"You don't like it here?" he asked with a frown.

I pursed my lips. "I like it. It's beautiful, the weather's perfect, the people are nice... But it's not _home_. And I've never really been away from home before now, with the exceptions of short little vacations my family would take, but at least then I'd have my family with me, y'know?" I shrugged. "I'm just ... starting to feel more homesick with every day that passes."

I surprised myself by saying that. I barely wanted to admit to _myself_ that I was homesick, much less someone I'd known for four days. I stayed quiet after my confession, letting Fado rattle on more about how excited everyone was about the children being safe, how the goats were today, and whatever else he wanted to talk about. I kinda zoned out after a while. Once we ate, I thanked Fado for the meal, and went back to Link's house. I fell asleep on the wooden floor, not even bothering to take off my boots or lay out blankets and a pillow.

My sixth day in Ordon was a lot like my fifth. I woke up in the morning, went to the spring, and practiced with the Hero's Shade. He wasn't as hard on me as he had been the previous day. We actually spent a decent amount of time just walking around the realm, and I took several breaks to go get food this time. My seventh day was much the same, as was my eighth day. I had found by then that I actually preferred spending my time with him than with the Ordonians. He might have been scary to look at and a hard-ass while teaching, but he was nice to be around.

Around midday on my ninth day, the Hero's Shade and I were taking a walk around the seemingly never-ending realm when my body started to shake around. It was like someone I couldn't see was repeatedly pushing me from the side.

"What's going on?!" I worriedly asked.

"It's Link. He's trying to wake you up," the Hero's Shade said. "I will return your consciousness now and go into his."

My vision turned white, then black, and when I opened my eyes, I was sitting on my knees in the alcove. The Hero's Shade was in his golden wolf form right ahead of me, and Link was to my right, hands on my shoulder.

"Hey, Link," I said. "Good to see you again. I almost forgot what you looked like."

"You were with him?" Link asked, peering towards the wolf.

"Yeah. I've been spending a lot of time with him over the past few days, practicing with my new sword and all. The sword and shield I have were his, before you ask. He wants to go into your conscience." I stood and backed up, leaving room for the wolf to jump at Link.

Link got to his feet and drew his sword, and the wolf let out a low growl before pouncing on him. The wolf faded away as Link fell to his knees. Midna popped out of Link's shadow, smiling.

"Did you miss me?" she said.

"Hilarious. Have you considered becoming a comedian?" I said.

Midna looked down at Link, ignoring what I said. "We would have been back a lot sooner if it weren't for him not being able to say no to the kids. But, good news is that Link got his horse back, so now it won't take too long for us to get anywhere. Link's going to talk to the mayor and try to plan out a course of action for us, and then we'll be on our way."

I frowned. Our ' _course of action_ ' would most likely bring us to another temple right away. Goron Mines was next, if Zi was right, and we'd be fighting Fyrus, which was surely some sort of fire monster. On the list of things I never wanted to do, _be on fire_ was pretty high up there.

"What happened while you guys were out there?" I asked.

Midna recounted what all had gone down. Link retrieved sixteen Tears of Light that belonged to the Light Spirit Eldin, dispelling twilight from the province. He found out that the Gorons, a tribe from Death Mountain, had recently turned their backs on the people of Kakariko Village. Link tried to scale the mountain to find out what had happened to make them change so suddenly, but a hostile Goron wouldn't let him pass. At the request of the children, Link decided to stay in the village for a few days, which Midna didn't seem happy about at all. As he was about to start his walk back down to Ordon, his horse came running to him.

"So, you didn't really miss too much," she said. "Anyways, the Gorons only recognize strength, and Mayor Bo is the only person who was ever able to earn their trust through it. Link's not strong enough to take on the Gorons now, so he's hoping Bo can help him. We're certain that the next Fused Shadow is somewhere on the mountain, so we really need to get past the Gorons."

"What about me, then? If _Link's_ not stronger than a Goron as he is, there's no way _I'll_ ever be stronger than one. Maybe I'll have to stay behind again..." I said.

Midna saw through my ploy. "There's no reason why you can't just stay close to Link while he takes care of the Gorons. But, you know, if you really don't want to go up the mountain, you don't _have_ to... If you don't want your bracelet back, that is." She grinned.

I clenched my fists. "I'm going," I said through my teeth.

I just needed to ignore the part of me wanted to say ' _fuck it_ ' and get used to living in Hyrule so I wouldn't have to put up with her any longer. I needed to go home.

* * *

 **If anyone can't tell by their descriptions, the sword and shield Vanna got are the Gilded Sword and Hero's Shield from Majora's Mask. I figure that Link would have kept his stuff after returning from Termina, even if he didn't use them anymore, and I thought it'd be nice of him to let Vanna use his weapons since he's dead.**

 **opalander and Mystery: I'm definitely not rushing/racing anything as much as I'm just really motivated to get this story fully out there! I always wanted to finish this story before next year, and I'm fairly certain I can** **( _Dec 2016 edit: lol nope_ )** **, so the game isn't really a problem. I was just making a joke about how hyped I am for it :p It's actually turning out to be good to me and this story since it has me in a very Zelda mood.**


	9. Village to Village

Midna dove back down into Link's shadow, leaving me to stand in the alcove until Link was finished with the Hero's Shade. Link stood up and put his sword away after a few minutes. Without needing to say anything to one another, we made our way out of the spring. Just beyond the exit was a tall reddish brown horse with a white tail, white mane, white feathering, and a white marking on her face in a shape that horses from my world could never have. I didn't know much about horses, but I guessed from her size that she was a Clydesdale, or Hyrule's equivalent of one at least.

"This is my horse, Epona," Link said. He lovingly stroked her before grabbing her reins.

"She's pretty," I said.

Link started to lead Epona down the lane, and I walked beside him. He dropped her reins when we got to his yard, and we went down into the main part of the village without her. Mayor Bo was standing outside of his house.

"Link?!" he yelled. He leaned forward to get a closer look. "Whoa, it _is_ you, Link! You're safe and sound! Your clothes... What happened to you, lad?"

"Bit of a long story," Link said as we got up to him.

"C-come quick! Inside, both of you!"

Bo opened the door to his house, and ushered us inside. We all stood on the main floor together.

"So, all the kids are in Kakariko Village, with a man called Renado who says he's a friend of yours," Link said to the mayor.

"That's good! Yes, Renado's an old friend. If they're in his care, then we can relax." Bo leaned forward again, looking excited. "Don't keep me waitin', lad! Tell me about my little girl! You found her, too, right?"

"Not yet..." Link said with a heavy frown, not looking Bo in the eyes.

"I see... That ain't what I wanted to hear..." The mayor let out a huff. "Ahh... But Link... I guess I need to think of all five of those poor kids, not just my own... They're all in danger. What I should be askin' is how I can help out..."

Link perked up at that. "I heard from Renado that you're the only one who ever bested the Gorons of Death Mountain. Vanna and I need to get up there, but there's no way they'll let us pass right now. How'd you do it?"

"It's true, I did defeat the Gorons in a contest of strength and earned their trust," Bo said. He smiled. "With the help of a little secret. I _can_ teach you the secret, Link ... but can you two promise me that you absolutely, positively, will _not_ disclose it to anyone?"

Link and I agreed to tell nobody, and Bo led us into the back room of his house. In the middle of the dirt floor was a raised ring.

"Link, you've heard of sumo wrestlin', right? Gorons like to match strength in sumo contests. Luckily for you, the basics of sumo are the same as stoppin' chargin' goats... You wanna hear the basics of the ways of sumo?" Bo said. Link eagerly nodded. "If you're gettin' in a sumo match, chances are you're in an arena like this. The first fella to push his foe outside the arena wins. Step forward and grab your foe, strike a fleein' foe with your hand, and sidestep an attackin' foe. Three techniques, all of 'em pretty basic. Master all three and you'll be shovin' folks out of the arena in no time, lad! So, there you go: the basics of sumo. Rather than explain a lot, why don't we just get to it? First we change, then we sumo! Since you don't have sumo attire, just wear your pants in the ring."

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't smiling as I nearly skipped my way over to a sturdy wooden rack along the back wall. I hoisted myself up and turned around to sit on it, my feet dangling off the edge. I watched nonchalantly as Link stripped himself down to nothing but his tan pants. He was more muscular than I imagined him being, but not overly muscular, with no hair to be seen on his chest or under his armpits. I mentally remarked to myself that if he was about a foot taller, he'd be perfect—but it was hard to think about that for long when I was pondering his lack of body hair, attractive as I may have found it.

"Do you shave?" I asked abruptly.

He looked taken aback by my question. "Um, no. A lot of Hylians aren't very hairy, even grown men... I come from one of the more hairless families."

I noted something off in his answer immediately. "How would you know that a lot of Hylians aren't hairy if you've only ever met like twenty of them? Especially when all the men here are hairy."

"I don't know if you've noticed my ears..." Link reached up and tapped the pointed tip of his left ear. "I'm not the same race as the people here. I'm Hylian, and they're ... well, just humans. Their race doesn't have a special name like Hylians do."

I hummed in thought. "I was meaning to ask you about your ears." I paused, before tacking on, "I like them."

I started to regret those words as soon as they left my mouth. Was it weird to compliment people on their ears? My question was answered when Link let out a short laugh, and said "Thanks," with no hint of insincerity in his voice.

Bo came back into the room wearing just a mawashi and strips of cloth wrapped around his knees. I grimaced at the sight and turned my attention back to Link.

The two got onto the raised arena, and each took a turn raising one leg up in the air and stomping it down. At Bo's call, they rushed towards each other. I couldn't help but cringe each time one of them slapped each other. They were slapping _hard_. They seemed evenly matched at first, but Link ended up triumphing. For their second match, they each stepped it up. There was a split second where I was certain Link was going to go falling backwards off the arena, before he sidestepped and pushed Bo off.

"Not too shabby, lad!" the mayor said as he got up. "You've gotten a sight stronger in the short time you've been gone, Link... Strong as you are, though, you can't hope to beat the Gorons wrestlin' with power alone. Those Gorons are made of rock! Naw, the secret to beatin' the Gorons ... is locked away in that chest." Bo held his hand out towards a chest sitting along the wall. "Take it with you, lad."

Link hopped off the arena, went over to the chest, and opened it. He reached inside, and his hands came back out with a pair of iron boots. They looked ridiculously heavy.

"You can probably tell, that iron is magic, lad. Those boots weigh nothin' if your feet aren't in 'em, and whoever wears 'em won't be easily pushed around, even by a Goron. If you're fixin' to fight a Goron, be sure to wear those boots. Let's be square, though: neither of you are ever gonna tell _anyone_ about those boots! 'Specially Renado!"

I got off the rack as Link and I once again ensured Bo that we wouldn't tell. Link went to put the boots inside one of his pouches, only to pull other things out first. He sat one of the rusty lanterns and a bottle filled with water on the ground, saying the lantern was mine and I could have the bottle. I dropped both of them in my pouch, along with my phone—fearful that it would fall off my belt and I'd lose it forever—and frowned as I saw how little room was left in there with just those three items. It looked like Link was storing everything he had in the smaller of his two pouches, and he still had more room in his than I did, because his items shrunk to a smaller size. I brushed my disappointment away, reminding myself that it could carry more than any pouch of the same size from my world could.

Link put all of his clothes and gear back on, and we bid our farewells to Bo. Link stopped walking once we were just outside of Sera's Sundries.

"I'm going to my house to grab some food for on the way to Kakariko. You should go in and see if Sera'll give you some ... feminine stuff ... before we go," Link said. He looked uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as I felt when I got what he meant.

' _Kill me. Kill me now._ ' "Thanks for your concern, but I-I'm good. I ... haven't... You don't have to worry about that," I struggled to get out. I could feel my cheeks tingling wildly. ' _Why. Why. Why._ '

Link looked away, starting to blush. "Just because you haven't started yet doesn't mean you never will. You're seventeen, you're already pushing it about as far as it can go. Go talk to her."

"I—"

"I ain't havin' you start bleeding halfway up a mountain without anything on you!" he said. "Just—go!"

I was about to just so that he would shut up about it, but I remembered that my pouch was full of other stuff, and there was no way I was gonna stuff some pads or tampons in there for them to accidentally fall out. "Where will I put them?"

He contorted his face. "Inside of you...?!"

" _I meant—!_ " I had to stop. I could not believe he seriously just said that. I reached up and grabbed my hair on both sides of my head. "My pouch is full! Oh, my _god!_ "

He let out a quiet "Oh" and stood there for a few seconds in silence. "Give me it," he said, holding his hand out.

I questioningly raised an eyebrow, but handed over my pouch to him anyways. He opened the flap, peeked inside, and hummed. He slowly rubbed his fingers in circles along the bottom. He handed it back over to me after a few seconds of concentration. I looked inside, and all of my items were smaller, leaving plenty of room.

"The magic was aged and worn. Where did you get that thing from anyways?" Link said.

"It was the Hero's Shade's, too, I think. You know, big undead knight. But, uh, thanks..."

"Welcome..." he said. Midna cleared her throat, and Link rolled his eyes back. "Meet me outside my house after... Well."

I nodded, and walked into Sera's. I stuffed the items she gave me into the very bottom of my pouch, thanked her, and left. Link was just leaving his house as I got up to it. He climbed down the ladder, and hoisted himself up onto his giant of a horse. He scooted as far up on the saddle as he could, and motioned with his hand for me to join him. I gave him a wary look.

"Just put your left foot on the stirrup, grab my hand, then pull yourself up and throw your right leg over," he said.

"You say that like it's easy for someone who's never gotten on a horse before," I muttered as I took his hand and placed my foot on the stirrup.

I tried to get myself up an embarrassing amount of times before Link wordlessly got off Epona, grabbed me by the ribs, and held me up like I weighed nothing. I grabbed onto the saddle and threw my right leg over, then settled down on it. Link got up slightly slower than he did the first time, being careful not to kick me as did.

"Wrap your arms around me, or you'll fall off," he said.

I wrapped my arms around him as he said, but it was awkward to do with his shield on his back. Link made a short noise, and Epona started to trot down the path to Faron.

"...So, how long will it take to get to our destination?" I asked.

"Should take us about five hours to get to Kakariko. It could take quite a while for us to scale the mountain, so we'll probably end up staying the night in the village and heading up in the morning. I don't think the Gorons would take too nicely to us sleepin' on their grounds."

Five hours on the back of a horse pushed up against a guy I barely knew with a spiteful girl hiding in our shadows, just so we could hike a mountain inhabited by powerful, hostile people that didn't want us to be there. How fun.

* * *

Riding Epona wasn't actually too bad, ignoring how uncomfortable it was to have both of us squished onto one saddle. I loved finally getting out of Ordon and Faron Woods, and out into Hyrule Field. It was the largest stretch of unoccupied land I'd ever seen with my own eyes. I couldn't help but wonder why people would seclude themselves in tiny villages like Ordon when all of this land was out here. It'd be a beautiful place to have a home. I'd much prefer to look out my window and see acres and acres of green grass than look out my window and see nothing but the outside of the twentieth floor of the bleak apartment complex across from mine. As much as I wanted to get home, part of me felt like I'd have trouble being happy going back to that tiny little apartment after what I saw that day.

It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, though. I finally got to see the twilight; it was creeping up on the field from the north, a yellow veil shooting from the ground and continuing high up into the sky. Many Bokoblins were aimlessly wandering, trying to attack whenever we got near. Epona was able to plow right through a number of them unscathed and unbothered, at least. There were also some other smaller enemies that I couldn't get a good look at, with Epona trampling right over them, too. The only monster that proved to be a problem were ones that Link called Kargaroks—pretty much another name for giant _Pterodactyl_ _s_. He swung his sword at those that came for us, while I stayed as ducked down as I could possibly be.

We were nearing Kakariko Village when I heard Link let out a deep growl. I assumed it was because of another pesky Kargarok, but when I peeked over his shoulder, I saw what looked like three giant boars, two with what looked like green Bokoblins riding them, and the third with a big fat green Bokoblin on it. They were clearly going to Kakariko Village. Link leaned forward, and Epona began to run faster while I clung on to Link for dear life. As we rounded the corner into the village, we saw that the monsters had come to a stop, and the fat green Bokoblin was holding up a limp child. Another animalistic growl ripped forth from Link, and Epona sped up. I lost my grip on Link as he leaned forward more, and I fell off the back of the horse.

All of the air was forced out of my lungs as I collided with the dirt. I heard Link shout that he was sorry, his voice gradually becoming lost along with the sound of racing hooves. I got to my knees and scrambled out of the way as quick as I could in case more Bokoblins would come down the path, the pain of my fall still reverberating within me.

"Are... Are you okay?" a wide-eyed young girl asked me. She was sitting on the ground, her right hand grasping her left arm. I guessed from her clothes and round ears that she was Ordonian—she was Beth, then, the only little girl from the village.

I knelt next to her. "I'm fine. What about you? Did you hurt your arm?"

She held it out. It was covered in dirt, but it didn't look to be bleeding. "I... I think I'm fine..."

A glint out of the corner of my eye brought my attention to a spring at the base of the village. "Why don't we clean it off in that spring over there so we can get a good look at it?"

The girl nodded, and I helped her stand up. She was shaking as we slowly walked over to the spring. I crouched down once our feet were about an inch into the water, and she followed my lead. I scooped some of the cold water into my hands and poured it on her arm multiple times, revealing red scratches. I gently used my wet hands to wipe away the remaining dirt, and poured water over the scratches again for good measure. I squinted my eyes as I stared at her arm.

"Is it just me...," I said, "...or are your scratches fading away?"

She ran a finger along the scratches. "This is one of the Light Spirits' springs. The water has healing properties." She pouted and looked down the narrow village. "Link needs to save Colin quick and get some of this water on him... He has to be hurt... All because of me..."

"Hey now," I said, rubbing her shoulder, "it's not your fault that bad guy took him away..."

Tears started to well up in her greenish blue eyes. "Yes it is! I was standing in the way, he pushed me, and then they took him!"

"Well..." I paused, thinking of a way to comfort her. "It doesn't really matter what happened, because Link is going to save him. And if Colin hadn't pushed you out of the way, and you were the one to be kidnapped, then Link would have saved you. There's nothing to worry about. Link will be back with Colin really soon, and they'll both be fine."

She seemed to think about it before nodding and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. "...Thanks," she said.

"No problem. You're Beth, right?"

"Mhmm. D-did Link tell you about me?" she asked, sounding and looking excited at the prospect.

"He brought up all of you kids, but none of you specifically. I was in Ordon for the past week or so, and I heard about you from your parents."

"Oh... Well, I heard about you from Link. Vanna, isn't it?" she said.

I nodded, and for a second I felt similar to how she did when she thought Link told me about her. I was curious what all he had said about me. I got the feeling it wasn't much, since he barely told me anything about anyone. Then again, he could have been a lot more talkative around the kids than he was around me.

Two boys walked up to us, and I presumed them to be Talo and Malo, the nine-year-old and four-year-old sons of Jaggle and Pergie. Talo looked a bit short for a nine-year-old to me—then again, the only Ordonian I met that was the size of the average American was Fado, who was a giant amongst the men of his village—but Malo looked like a _baby_. Not just in his round face, but overall. The purple bow on top of his head of brown hair didn't even come halfway up my thighs.

Beth introduced me to the boys. The kids all seemed to still be in shock at the kidnapping of their friend, and none of us spoke much. We ended up sitting on a porch to wait for Link to come back with Colin, and a tall man and a girl slightly older than Beth came over to us from where they had been standing at the other end of the village. They looked Native American, and it looked like the girl was the man's daughter. She clung to his side, and she had tear stains running down her tan cheeks.

"How are all of you?" the man asked.

We responded with a chorus of " _okay_ "s and " _fine_ "s. The man ever-so-slightly smiled, and he looked at me.

"You must be Vanna, correct?" he said. I nodded. "Thank you for watching over these children, Vanna. I was waiting near the northern entrance for Link to return with Colin so I could get the boy inside as quick as possible, but he's taking longer than I expected..." He looked down at the girl on his side. "This is my daughter, Luda, and I am Renado, the shaman of Kakariko Village."

They both bowed, and when they came back up, I bowed my head to them and said it was nice to meet them. They led us up near the northern entrance, where we could tell earlier when Link was near. With every minute that passed, I saw the kids become more and more worried. Their worries were both released and raised at the same time when Link finally rounded into the village on Epona with an unmoving Colin in his arms. Link handed Colin down to Renado, and the other children, save Luda, immediately started to bombard the man, asking if Colin was okay.

"Please, stay calm, for Colin's sake," Renado said. "Let me take him to the Elde Inn to assess him for injuries. I will let you all know soon how he is holding up."

The kids quieted, and Renado walked off towards one of the buildings along the side of the village. Luda followed behind him, Malo walked down to a small building at the end of the village, and Talo began to slowly pace the ground. Link hopped off Epona, and Beth flung her arms around him. He was shocked by the gesture at first, but then returned her hug.

"You're so brave, Link!" Beth said. "Do you think Colin is going to be okay?"

Link sighed. "We have to wait to hear from Renado."

* * *

The news didn't look very bright.

The Bullbo had trampled over Colin, breaking his left leg, and crushing down on his abdomen. Renado said it was impossible to tell the full extent of his abdominal injuries, but it was more than likely that Colin had internal bleeding and ruptured organs, and it was possible that his spine had been broken and he'd never walk again. He had administered all of the magical potions he could to the boy, but he wasn't sure if he could pull through.

Of course, Link and I were the only ones he told his full findings to. Renado had given the children a much less intense description of Colin's injuries. While he didn't want to tell them flat out that their friend might not make it, he requested that they spend time with him, despite him being unconscious. It could have been their last chance to see him alive, after all. I didn't want to intrude, so I sat outside of the room he was resting in while everyone else went in to see him. I heard quiet gasps after awhile. I feared the worst, but then I heard a voice I hadn't heard yet.

" _Is everyone ... okay? ...Good. Beth... I'm sorry. You know ... for shoving you. Are you ... mad?_ "

"Colin," she said, her voice shaking. " _How could I be_ mad _at you? You saved my life..._ "

It was quiet for a few seconds before he spoke again. " _I... I think I finally understand. I understand what my dad meant ... when he told me I needed to be stronger, like you, Link... He wasn't talking about strength, like lifting stuff... He was talking about being brave... Link... You saved me, didn't you? You... You can do anything. You can do something to help the Gorons in the mine too, can't you, Link?_ "

" _I can_ ," Link gently responded.

There was a moment of silence before more gasps came from within the room, but they sounded distressed this time. Renado asked for everyone to stay calm, and then assured them that Colin was merely sleeping. He said that the boy would need as much rest and as much peace as possible to recover, and he suggested that everyone else get some sleep, too.


	10. The Not-Dwarves' Mountain

Renado was standing at Colin's bedside when I woke up. His eyes flicked over to me from him. "Good morning, Vanna," he said, as quiet as he could be without whispering.

"Morning, Renado," I said back just as quietly, kicking my legs off the bed I had slept in. I looked across the seven other beds in the room, finding that Renado was the only one not in his. Everyone else was still sleeping. "So, how's Colin?"

"His condition hasn't changed since last night."

"That's good, right?" I said. Renado raised an eyebrow. "Not _good_ ," I clarified, "but ... not really _bad_. He could be worse, is what I'm saying, so it's good that he's, y'know ... not dead."

He smiled and looked back down at Colin. "Yes, it is good that he's not dead. Still, I had hoped that him managing a full night's rest would mean that he would improve some..."

I idly played with my fingers and pretended to be soaking in the details of the candle-lit wooden room. Renado didn't seem to be the type to keep up a conversation, or at least not while he was watching over a patient, so I was waiting for someone else to get up and break the silence.

"...It is four in the morning, you know," Renado said after a few minutes.

"It is?" I asked. I didn't really need to ask though, because it made sense when I thought about it. We had all went to bed at around eight the previous night, so it had already been eight hours, which was exactly how long I always slept.

"Yes, it is. Perhaps it'd be best if you tried to get more sleep. You've got a long day ahead of you, if you're to be scaling the mountain with Link."

"I've never been able to get more than eight hours sleep." I pulled my black boots on and got up. "If I'm not back before Link wakes up, can you tell him that I'm outside?"

Renado nodded, and I left the Elde Inn. For the first time since getting to Hyrule, I was greeted by crisp air, and I crossed my arms for warmth. I supposed I should have suspected it; autumn was nearing after all, and I was no longer in the forest, but rather an arid region. I started to walk down the village, head tilted back, as part of what had become my morning routine over the last few days. I experienced yet another first—the sun had already started to rise during all of my previous morning walks, but the stars were still in the sky as I paced Kakariko. I had never seen so many, and they made me feel a twinge of jealousy in my heart. I wanted to take Hyrule's sky back home with me.

My morning walks in Ordon always led me to the Hero's Shade, but I didn't have anyone or anything to go to in Kakariko, so I continually walked up and down the narrow village before I grew bored of walking and stopped to pet Epona. I plopped down on the side of the dirt road after a while and rested my head back against one of the boarded-up buildings. I tried to find any familiar constellations in the sky.

As the stars were beginning to fade away, I heard the door to the Elde Inn open and close. When I looked over, Malo was walking down the steps of the wooden porch. He started to walk down the village, not even sparing me a glance.

"Hey, Malo," I said as he got to the point in the road that I was at. "Where're you going?"

He stopped in his tracks, and his green eyes shot over to me. If looks could kill... "To the store." He walked off without another word.

I watched as he went inside a building at the end of the village, and then I stood. If he was awake, then maybe other people were up, too. I walked back inside the hotel, and the smell of eggs wafted over to me. I followed the scent into the kitchen, where I found Luda. She offered me breakfast, which we ate together. Beth and Talo joined us in the middle of our meal, and after we were all done we hung out in the main lobby. Link was the last one to come down, at eight in the morning.

"Have a nice _twelve hour_ sleep?" I asked as he walked down the stairs.

Apparently he didn't sense the disparagement in my voice, because he responded with a sincere nod. Link scarfed down the cold leftovers from breakfast and cleaned his dishes before he spoke to me. "Let's go."

The children wished us luck, and we walked out. Link raised his pointer finger and ran over to Epona. He gave her some food he had stored in his pouch and stroked her with one hand as she ate out of the other. Midna came out of my shadow and stretched.

"Have you been in my shadow this whole time?" I asked.

"What did I tell you?" she responded.

I rolled my eyes. " _My shadow's comfier than Link's_ _._ But you haven't said anything all day. That doesn't seem like you."

"Because you were with the kids when I woke up, and I don't want anyone to know about me." Midna looked over at Link and narrowed her one uncovered eye at him. "Come on, Link!"

Link patted Epona and jogged over to me. Midna dove down into my shadow, and Link and I set off up Kakariko. We followed the left trail as we got to a fork in the path. I yet again found myself wanting to stay behind when we came upon a tall cliff face. It had metal fencing going all the way up it, at least, but it went up so high. I walked up to it faster than Link so that I could at least get a head start. He caught up to me by the time I was at the top of the cliff face, and we pulled ourselves up and over at the same time.

As I had pondered earlier in the day what our journey up the mountain would entail, I thought about what the Gorons would be like, and I had come to the conclusion that they would probably be Hyrule's version of Dwarves, much like how Hylians were Hyrule's version of Elves. They supposedly were strong, mountain-dwelling people who mined, which matched up perfectly with my idea of Dwarves.

So needless to say, I was very much surprised when I did not see a stocky, hairy man, and instead saw a _boulder_ with stumpy legs, long and muscular arms, and a fat head atop its shoulders with big round eyes.

"Ho! You are back again with a friend this time, human? You will never pass! Even two humans cannot hope to match our brute force!" it yelled.

It dropped down and curled itself up into a ball, and started to spin in place, like how characters used to run without moving on old TV shows. Link ran ahead some, dropped the iron boots down in front of him, and hopped into them. He bent his knees with his feet apart, and held his arms out.

"Stay behind me and to my left!" he yelled.

I got to where he wanted me to be before the Not-Dwarf shot itself forward, dirt clouds puffing up behind it as it rolled down the incline towards Link. I couldn't hold back a gasp as the living boulder rolled straight into Link's arms. Link yelled as he turned himself and threw the Goron right off the cliff. It continued to roll down the path into the village, screaming all the while. Link brushed his hands together in satisfaction. He gave me a concerned look when he turned his head to me. My shock must have been more evident on my face than I thought.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I thought Gorons were people!" I said.

"They are people!" Link said.

"No they're not! They're fucking _rocks!_ "

"They're rock people! You already knew that they were made of rocks. Bo said they were when we were in his house."

"I thought it was just a figure of speech! I didn't think he actually _meant_ it!"

* * *

I stayed a bit behind Link as we followed the mountain trail, and neither of us nor Midna said anything for hours—or, if they said anything, I didn't hear it, because I was listening to music the whole time. Numerous Gorons spotted us from their perches upon the tops of the high walls of the mountain, and rolled down at us, but Link flung them all down the trail. After several hours of hiking up the mountain with only a few seconds-long breaks to catch our breath, I got the feeling that we were finally close to the mines. We were no longer on a narrow trail, and more Gorons were up on the multitude of cliffs jutting out of the mountainside.

I hated climbing the grated cliff way back at the beginning of the trail, but I would have preferred that over what seemed to be the only way up these cliffs. One Goron hopped onto the back of a rolled-up Goron, and as the one being stood on unrolled itself, the other one shot up into the air. It landed on a higher cliff, and then went through an entryway into the mountain. I got my phone out and finally turned off my music, figuring that I'd have to cooperate with Link to get the Gorons to curl up for us so we could get up to that entryway. I realized that I had a text from my mom that I didn't notice earlier.

I couldn't count how many texts she'd sent me saying ' _Are you okay?_ ' or ' _How are you?_ ' since she learned that Zi was able to text me. I had asked her, and everyone else I knew, for that matter, to not text me those things so much, but I knew that was a hefty request for a worrying mother. I started to send her back a text, telling her that I was okay, and asking if she would keep from texting me at all that day because I'd be busy, even though it pained me to not be able to talk to her. Just as I sent it, Link slammed into me, and we fell over. A _ginormous_ , red-hot rock had fallen right where I was standing, and smaller—but still decently sized—rocks started to rain down on the area after it. A normal mountain wasn't bad enough, _no_ , we were going to have to go inside a _volcano_.

"Whoa, that was dangerous! Is this the traditional Death Mountain welcome?" Midna said, coming out of my shadow.

She giggled, but I couldn't tell whether it was because of her own ' _joke_ ' or because she noticed that Link was still on me. He got off me, and as I pushed myself up, I grumbled under my breath that he should have let it hit me.

"Why are you in such a bad mood?" Link asked, my sour attitude clearly having rubbed off on him.

I groaned—we just hiked up a mountain for hours upon hours so that we could go inside of an erupting volcano and he was really wondering that? "I'm in a bad mood because _I want to go home!_ "

"So do I!"

" _Your_ home isn't in a _different universe!_ Nothing's stopping you from going back to Ordon! _Nothing!_ "

" _Everything_ is stopping me from going back to Ordon!"

"Maybe you two should knock it off for now," Midna interrupted, "because that Goron just noticed you and he's coming over to fight."

Link and I both looked to where Midna's finger was pointing. A Goron was stomping his way over to us, large fists at the ready. Link drew his sword and shield and met the Goron halfway. I scoffed at the thought of Link's wooden shield holding up to the fist of that thing, but it blocked the Goron's punch with no problem, and the Goron went stumbling back. Link slashed his sword at the animated boulder, and though it didn't look to physically harm it, the Goron curled up into a ball in what I assumed to be a defense mechanism. I climbed up onto the Goron, and Link gave me a ' _What the hell are you doing?_ ' look before it uncurled itself and sent me catapulting up into the air. A little squeal escaped me before I landed, and then I let out a sigh of relief. I peered down over the cliff at Link, wondering if I should wait for him.

I decided not to. I drew my sword and shield and approached a Goron that could get me up the next cliff, intending to repeat what Link had done. I thought that I would probably have an even easier time than Link—my shield was metal, and my sword looked like it was more powerful than his—but there was something I didn't account for. Just because _my shield_ could take a Goron's punch better than Link's shield, didn't mean _I_ could. When the Goron punched my raised shield, the force of the blow ended up making me get hit in the face by my own arm and fall backwards. As my head collided with the solid ground, my vision flickered to static for a second. I blinked rapidly as I rushed to my feet, my head swirling. I broadly swung my sword at the Goron and landed a hit, and he curled up. The remaining effects of my collision with the ground faded away as I climbed the Goron's back and got shot up to the next cliff.

I continued using the Gorons to get myself further up the mountain, and I only stopped to look back for Link once I got up to the entryway. I couldn't even see him anymore. Again, I decided to go forth without him, and I walked into the hole in the mountain's wall. It started out as not much but a dark tunnel, but when I walked further into it, I saw that it broadened into a lantern-lit room filled with Gorons. I looked behind me once, but Link still hadn't caught up to me. I drew my sword and walked into the room.

All of the Gorons promptly noticed me, and they did that thing where they curled up and rolled without actually moving forward. I took a step back and turned my body slightly, ready to book it out of there if they didn't stop. At once, they all started to roll towards me, and right before I was about to turn myself the rest of the way around and run, a deep voice called into the room.

" _Enough!_ "

The Gorons stopped immediately. They stood up and looked towards another narrow tunnel that led into the room, where a Goron slowly walked in. That one was much smaller than the others, although still big, and looked to be older than them. Where the other Gorons had lighter beige designs over their bodies, the old one had purple designs, and it wore a loincloth rather than a diaper, for lack of a better word.

"Is this young one such an imposing enemy that you must all gang up on her? I think not, Little Brothers," the Goron said. He stopped, put his hands on his hips, and smiled. "Come here!"

I eyed the other Gorons distrustfully as I heeded the command of the older Goron. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs that he stood atop, feeling the stares of all of the Gorons on me.

"I am a Goron elder, little human. I am called Gor Coron."

I nodded, unsure of how to show proper respect to Gorons upon meeting them. "I am a ... _little human_ , and I'm called Vanna."

Gor Coron nodded back. "Because of certain ... circumstances, I must lead the Goron tribe in place of Darbus, our tribal patriarch. Tell me, little human, do you come from the village below?"

"Um, well, I'm not _from_ there, but I got up here from there," I said. "I need to get into the mines, so could you maybe direct me there? Please?"

"You have done well to come this far. You are strong ... for a human. However..." He crossed his arms. "The mines beyond here are sacred to my tribe. Outsiders are not allowed in. Unless..."

 _Crap, crap, crap_. I knew what he was going to say, and I didn't like it.

He smiled again. "I could make an exception ... but you would have to beat me in a contest of power. Are you willing to try that, little human?"

I heard gentle footsteps come into the room just in time. I could have sighed in relief, but I knew there was a chance it was too early for that. "If my friend here beats you in a contest of power, would you let both of us into the mines?"

Gor Coron looked right over my head, and tapped his fingers on his arms. With a stiff nod, he started down the steps. I let out that sigh of relief and moved out of the way, and turned to look at Link. I thought he would be mad at me for volunteering him to fight— _I_ surely would have been mad if I were him—but he slipped his feet into the iron boots in preparation for his fight without any complaint.

I guessed it made sense that Gorons were rocks, because they were just about as dumb as them. Not one said anything about Link's boots, though it was painfully obvious just by looking at them that they made him harder to push around. The boots created a loud bang with each laborious step Link took to get up onto the arena.

The fight was ended much earlier than I expected it to, with Link as the winner. Though I didn't count the seconds of any of Link's three sumo matches that I'd seen, I was certain that he beat Gor Coron faster than he managed to beat Mayor Bo. It really wasn't _too_ surprising, given how slow the Goron moved and how old he appeared to be, but I thought it would be at least a little more intense.

Gor Coron rose to his feet, a smile on his face. He congratulated Link on his victory, and told us the story of the Gorons' patriarch. Darbus had touched a treasure inside the mountain while he and the four Goron elders were investigating the mountain's non-stop eruptions, and he transformed into a monster. When he began to wreak havoc, the elders had no choice but to seal him deep inside of the mountain. I quickly put two and two together—Darbus was Fyrus, and it was the power of a Fused Shadow that turned him into a monster.

"I ask this favor of you, young warriors," Gor Coron said. "Go to the aid of Darbus! Make no mistake, the spirits have guided you two here. I, Gor Coron, need your help... On behalf of my entire clan, I ask for your aid!"

I felt bad as I agreed, because Gor Coron didn't know what was coming for Darbus. I was almost 100% certain that Link and I would have no choice but to kill him. We _needed_ that Fused Shadow, so that I could go home. I tried to reassure myself that I wasn't being entirely selfish; it would be better for Darbus to just put him out of his misery rather than letting him stay a monster. Still, I would feel bad about killing him, knowing that he had been a ... ' _person_ _,_ ' at some point. At least Diababa was probably only a Deku Baba or Baba Serpent before it got corrupted by the Fused Shadow.

Gor Coron instructed the two Gorons guarding the tunnel he had walked in from to let us pass. I walked in first, hearing Link's heavy footsteps a ways behind me. The further I got into the tunnel, the hotter it became. By the time I walked out of the tunnel and into the mines, the temperature was almost unbearable, and I didn't have to walk too far into the mines to see the cause—a river of magma flowed down the center of the long room. I let out a sigh and maneuvered around to get my cropped overshirt off without having to take off my baldric. This was going to be miserable.

* * *

 **I apologize that this chapter's a bit on the short side and that it took three weeks. On top of being busy this month, this chapter was just one of those ones that didn't want to be written x.x In other news, I'm going on vacation from July 29th to August 3rd and won't be writing while I'm away, so I'm going to try to finish the next chapter before I leave, but I might not be able to. Dungeon chapters are always the hardest for me to write (I learned this weakness of mine when I wrote a story similar to this but set in Skyward Sword. I can at least say that I've improved a lot. _A lot_ , a lot. You guys don't even want to know how long it took me to write some chapters of that...).**

 **I just realized that this story broke 1,000 views before posting this (I think it might have before I posted the last chapter but I wasn't paying attention xp)! Thanks to everyone who has read it so far! I know that's probably not a lot of views on this site, but I was honestly expecting this story to only get maybe a couple hundred overall, so getting over 1,000 before posting the tenth chapter is crazy.**


	11. Heat

**I'm back! I'm not even gonna try to give any excuses for how long this chapter took because I've just been doing other things in my free time. But, when I had free time and wasn't writing this chapter, I did still do some work on this story. I revised my plans, wrote some scenes of future chapters, stuff like that. By ' _some_ ' scenes of future chapters I actually mean that I've got about 9,000 words of scenes written down that'll be in the story eventually. I am _awful_ at writing in chronological order. Here's chapter 11, finally.**

* * *

It made me feel good, in the worst way, to see that Link couldn't handle the heat as well as I could.

He had us take a lunch break as soon as he got into the mines, during which time he chugged down an entire canteen filled with water that Luda had given him. He restrained himself from drinking any more out of the other canteen he had, despite how much he was itching to. As I sipped the water from the first of my two canteens, Link gave me a worried look.

"...You should drink more," he said, his voice slightly quiet. "You have to be dehydrated."

"If one of us is dehydrated, it's clearly you, judging by how much you've drunk. Not that I want you to pass out from dehydration or anything, but you really should have drunk less. God knows how long we'll be in here, and you've finished half your water supply before we even started anything," I said.

"You're not even _sweating_."

"Women don't sweat as much as men," I said with a shrug.

Link made a noise of displeasure before removing his belt and his baldric. Before I could ask what he was doing, he took off his green tunic and chain mail, his long pointy hat falling off in the process. A very unpleasant smell drifted over to me as he lifted his arms, making me scrunch my nose up and scoot backwards. He had never smelled the best to me, but he _really_ didn't smell good now. His current odor was entirely repulsive, unlike his old earthy scent of trees and dirt with a tinge of what I could now identify as goat manure.

He placed his shirts in his pouch, seemingly unaffected by his own stench. He then strapped his baldric over his undershirt that was absolutely drenched in sweat around his neck and armpits, and buckled his belt around his hips. Link picked up his hat from behind him and put it back on his head, then stood up and put his canteens away.

"Have fun with your impending heat stroke because of that stupid hat," I said as I got up.

He reached up to touch his hat and frowned, looking hurt. "My hat ain't stupid... I can handle feeling a little warmer if it means feeling a lot more at ease. I've gotten so used wearin' my hat that I feel weird without it."

"Your hat is definitely stupid."

Link glared at me and started down what little of the path there was before the magma lake, grumbling " _M_ _y hat_ _is_ not _stupid_ " under his breath. I laughed quietly as I followed him, and he glared back at me again.

"What's so funny back there?"

"What's funny is you getting worked up over a _hat_ ," I said.

He stopped walking and turned to face me. "This ain't just _any_ ole hat. This hat was given to me by a _Light Spirit_ , and it was once worn by an ancient hero who saved Hyrule."

" _Any ole hat_ or not, you _have_ to admit it looks funny."

"You've got no room to be talking about my hat when you wear a shirt that doesn't even go past your ribs. Don't you know that shirts are supposed to cover your _entire_ torso?"

"Says the one who wears a shirt so long it's practically a dress."

"It's called a _tunic_."

"And my shirt is called a _crop top_."

Link rolled his eyes and let out a long breath through his nose. "Okay, I'm done with discussing _clothes_ inside a _volcano_. I just want to go find Darbus, get the Fused Shadow, and get out of here before I melt."

"Fine."

With that word, the quiet returned.

I always hated the quiet. Having only the sound of the magma lake bubbling over top of the constant electric hum produced by my hearing aids was maddening, but it wasn't like I could get my phone out and start listening to music. We had to hop over dangerous chasms and avoid geysers of magma to make it to the end of the sweltering room. One second of distraction was all it would take for me to make a wrong step and fall to my death.

We were out of the long room after several of the most stressful moments of my life, and outside into what I supposed was the main area of the mines. Large and stationary metal cranes hung over platforms that rose out of the lava, and metal ramps and gratings were connected to form entrances to different rooms back inside. We took the only path we could take from where we were, ending up in a room with more magma geysers and chasms, and...

"Since when do _alligators_ live inside of volcanoes?" I said.

"You talkin' about the Dodongo? They've always lived in the volcano regions," Link said.

Alligator or not, it was actually a strangely comforting sight in a way. In the midst of this unfamiliar world, at least there was something else that my world had, too, even if that something was slightly different with its purple gecko-like toes and orange tail.

"Don't jump down here until I tell you to," Link commanded. "Those things are really dangerous. Just let me take care of it."

"You're a goat wrangler, not a ' _Dodongo_ ' wrangler. Do you _want_ to get eaten?"

Link looked at me like I had just said the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "I ain't gonna wrangle it, I'm gonna kill it!"

I stared in disbelief as he hopped down and ran over to the Dodongo, sword and shield at the ready. The Dodongo opened its mouth wide and I cringed away, thinking it was about to lunge forward and bite Link. Instead, Link jumped over to the side just as fire began to erupt from its mouth.

"The alligators breathe fire," I whispered to myself. "They. Breathe. _Fire?_ "

The Dodongo was even more dangerous than I thought—and Link was even stupider than I thought.

"Get _away_ from that thing!" I yelled.

"I've got it, calm down!" Link yelled back.

He jumped to the side again as the Dodongo sent another stream of flames his way. Link raced around to its back and slashed his sword down at its orange tail repeatedly. It exploded into nothing after a good ten slashes at its tail, just like the Deku Babas and Skulltulas and Bokoblins did.

"...Link?" I said.

He looked up at me. "Hm?"

I jumped down and walked over to him. "How can you tell what creatures are evil and what creatures aren't?"

Link raised an eyebrow. "Evil creatures want to kill you."

"I know that already. How do you know _which_ creatures want to kill you?"

"Well, typically the ones who want to kill you will try to kill you."

I huffed, and he smiled a bit. He walked up to the edge of the rock platform we were standing on, and motioned with his hand for me to come with him as he jumped over onto another. I followed him, hopping from rock to rock until we got to the other side of the large platform. There was a big metal chain attached to a concrete slab that went through the middle part of the platform that was sectioned off by two walls.

"Let me put it this way," I said. "How do you know that Dodongos are evil when other animals like goats _aren't_ evil? Don't answer something stupid like ' _Goats won't try to kill you_.' There has to be some other way you know."

Link shrugged. "I've read a lot of books that have monsters in them, so I recognize them from those. I'll tell you about the monsters we see when we see them, okay?" I nodded. "Just remember that it's best for you to be careful around anything that isn't a person."

"I don't know what classifies a person as a person here either, though," I said, frowning. "If you hadn't told me Gorons were people, I wouldn't have considered them to be. In my world, the only people are other humans like me."

"Hyrule has humans like you, Hylians like me, and Gorons, Zoras, Fairies... We used to have a few more kinds of people, but those are the only ones left, that I know of at least. Zoras are fish people, and Fairies are these tiny little people who fly around with wings. You'll know what I mean if you see them."

I was about to tell him that I knew what Fairies were even though they were nothing more than fiction in my world, but I didn't want our conversation to go there. "Why would fish people be considered people more than Bokoblins, though? Bokoblins just look like a really ugly green or purple mix between Hylians and apes. I know that they're evil, but why does that negate their personhood? I'm sure Hylians and humans have kidnapped kids before, just like how that big Bokoblin kidnapped Colin."

"The green guys aren't Bokoblins. They're Bulblins. There's a difference, and not just in their skin color. Look closer next time you see one." Link picked up the chain and turned it over in his hands. "And yeah, I'm sure there are Hylians that do evil things, too, but Hylians aren't inherently evil like Bokoblins and Bulblins are. We're the chosen people of the Goddesses, we weren't born of evil." He paused and looked at me. "Was there another path we could have taken?"

"No, this was the only way. Give me that." I grabbed the chain's handle from him and tugged on it, making the slab pull out of the wall the tiniest bit. "The exit from this room has to be hidden behind that slab. We need to pull it out as far as we can."

Link took hold of the other side of the handle, and together we pulled it back, the slab sliding out along with it. When it got to the point where we could pull it out no further, we dropped the chain, and as soon as we did the slab began to slowly slide back. Link and I exchanged a quick glance of confirmation, our eyes saying the word that our mouths didn't— _run_.

We just barely made it within the short window of time we had, the slab blocking us off from the rest of the room just seconds after we got past it. Just like I suspected, there was a door right in front of us, another one of the weird round rolling doors that seemed to be the standard in temples. Unlike the rock doors in the Forest Temple, these were made of wood, with a metal decal in the middle and metal around the rims.

"Kinda dumb to have wooden doors in here, don't you think?" I said. "It's like the torches inside of the Forest Temple. Is it not common knowledge in Hyrule that fire and wood don't mix?"

Link narrowed his eyes at me, still trying to catch his breath from our dash over here. "Just because our world may not be as ' _advanced_ ' as yours is doesn't mean we're _stupid_."

"You've been carrying around a wooden shield inside of a volcano that has fire-breathing creatures."

I could practically see the ' _Oh, right. Huh_ ,' look on his face. "I know it's not _ideal_ ," he said, "but I need a shield, and it's all I got."

I pulled mine off my baldric and held it over to him. "Take mine. You're the one that wants to fight. You need it more than me."

"But you—"

" _Take it_ ," I said. It should have been his in the first place anyways; it belonged to his great-great-grandfather, not mine.

With a sigh, Link dropped his wooden shield into his pouch, and attached the metal one to his baldric. He looked more of a hero with his ancestor's shield his back, more _right_. I remembered how his birthmark matched the yellow design on the shield, like it was made for him to hold. ...But how did his great-great-grandfather know, in his youth when that shield belonged to him, that his great-great-grandson would someday wield the shield and be born with that same mark?

Link placed both his hands on the wooden door, and before he opened it, he looked back at me and said, "So you know—I don't _want_ to fight."

I nearly snorted. Sure looked like he wanted to fight when he hopped right on down to fight that Dodongo.

The room the door led to was much smaller, and much cooler, with no magma inside. Instead, there was a pool of water with a metal fence halfway through it. There were two floors in one, with a higher door and a lower door in sight, but they both looked impossible to get to, both too high up.

Midna emerged from my shadow. "That's weird. This place is pretty cool. Good place to take a bath?"

"You could use one," I said to Link.

Midna giggled at my comment. Link looked like he took offense to it until he sniffed. His expression was a mix of surprise, disgust, and embarrassment.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't know I smelled that bad."

Link jumped into the water and submerged himself in it. When he came back up, his took his hat off and shook out his hair, little droplets of water flinging out.

"What are you, a dog?!" I said as I backed up.

"Oh, aren't you in for a surprise," Midna said.

Link shot her a look, then looked at me. "Get in. It's real nice." He drank some of the water and hummed in delight. "Tastes good, too."

I scrunched up my face. "Ew! Swimming in it's one thing, but why would you _drink_ it?"

"Um, I'm thirsty?"

"Who _knows_ what's in that water? That's disgusting!"

"Too thirsty to care," he said, taking another big gulp. "Come on and get in."

I walked closer to the edge, and peered down into the water. The pool was probably between ten and fifteen feet deep. There was a hole big enough for a person to get through at the bottom of the fence, and just beyond it was a switch on the ground. I guessed that it would raise some platform that would take us up to the strange, flickering blue overhang that led to the lower door.

"I don't know if..." I trailed off.

"What, can't swim?" Link teased, an amused look on his face.

His look faded as he saw mine.

"I-it's not, it's not that I..." I staggered. My cheeks were as hot as the magma. "I _can_ swim. I just—not underwater. I'm fine on the surface, kinda. But we have to go through that hole," I pointed, "at the bottom of the fence to get to the other side, and I..."

Link looked behind him. "Swim up to the fence, and climb over?" he suggested.

I wasn't good at climbing, either, but at least I knew that it was something I could actually do. "Y-yeah, I can do that."

"Meet you on the other side," Link said.

He dove down, and I watched as he swam deeper and deeper. He came up on the other side of the fence and shook his hair out again, then looked over to me as he put his hat back on. I was still standing in the same place.

"Right," I whispered to myself.

Rather than jumping in, I lowered myself into the unexpectedly chilled water. I slowly made my way over to the fence, and grabbed onto the metal and pulled myself up out of the water. I stopped for a second at the top, my legs straddling either side, thinking about how to maneuver myself and climb down. My hands gripped the beam on the top of the fence so hard I was sure the rivets would leave dents in my skin. I carefully pulled my left leg over to the other side, then slotted my foot into a hole. I went to move my right foot down.

It slipped. I lost my grip on the top of the fence, and went falling backwards. I could only let out a short scream before my body was completely under the water.

I wildly flung my arms and kicked my legs up and down. I freaked out so much trying to get myself to the surface that I didn't even close my mouth or plug my nose, so when my head finally came up, water was pouring out of my mouth and nose. An arm wrapped around my waist, preventing me from going back down again.

"Are you okay?" Link asked.

I rubbed the water out of my eyes and blinked them open. Link was in front of me, one of his arms floating on the surface of the water, and his legs kicking underneath to keep us both up. I spit out what water remained in my mouth and wiped at my nose as I nodded.

"You were really thrashing around," he said. "I thought you were gonna make yourself drown."

I moved his arm off me and pushed away so that I could kick my own legs. "No," I said, though I wasn't sure what I was saying it to—I _was_ thrashing around, and I thought I was going to drown, too. "I can swim, see? I just needed to calm down. I'm sure you would have been scared if you suddenly fell that far down, too."

"So, you're fine now?" he asked. I nodded. "You're not going to drown?" I nodded again. "Okay, good. Follow me up above the switch over there."

We swam over, and I could tell he was going slower so that I could keep up. We stopped above the switch, and Link reached into his pouch. He brought his iron boots out and slipped them onto his feet, and he started to sink down immediately. I was mortified watching him go down, imagining myself in his spot, though he looked calm as ever.

The ground didn't rise when Link sunk onto the switch, like I thought it would. The door didn't lower either, like my second guess. Instead, a shining ring of blue light erupted from the ground to the overhang of the flickering blue floor above us, and we went flying up to it. I hit the floor with a bang, immediately becoming disoriented. We were upside-down. My whole body felt like it was buzzing with electricity.

Link looked down at me—up at me?—and I could tell he was just as confused and disoriented as I was. "How are you sticking?"

"How are _you_ sticking?" I shot back.

"This floor must be magnetic. My boots are sticking. But you..."

But I wasn't wearing iron boots.

I sat up, becoming even more disoriented as I noticed my wet hair was hanging above my head instead of down my back. I slowly stood, feeling like my body was trying to hold me against the magnet. I looked at my feet when I was all the way up. Like Link's, they were the only thing keeping me from falling down into the water, down where gravity should have made me be.

"Do your boots have metal in them?" Link asked.

"No, they don't. Nothing that I'm wearing has any—" I stopped myself as I realized that while my whole body felt like it was being tugged down, or up, something at my hips and torso was tugging with more vigor. I reached for my gun, and as soon as I grabbed it, the buzzing sensation multiplied in my hands, and I could feel it trying to bring itself to the magnetic ground. Though I didn't pull it out, I was certain that what was tugging down on my torso was my sword attempting to pull away from my baldric to meet the magnet. "My gun and my sword must be enough to keep all of me up here with them."

"Better make sure you don't drop them, then, if they're what's keepin' you up here."

I looked up/down at the water, holstering my gun but keeping my hand firmly over it. I gulped. "Yeah."

I wasted no time walking forward and over the edge of the overhang, and Link followed my lead. My feelings of being disoriented washed away when we were no longer upside-down. The buzzing feeling I felt washed away too, along with the pull of my gun and sword, as I stepped off the magnetized blue floor onto normal earth. The lower of the two previously unreachable doors was before us. Our boots squeaked as we walked over to it.

Inside the room was what looked to be another sumo ring, with an elderly Goron standing on the middle of it. He was by far the smallest Goron I'd seen, his narrow eyes even with my belly button, and he held a walking stick in his left hand. Even though he was holding the walking stick and standing in one place, he was still wobbling uncontrollably as he tried to keep his balance. My eyes flicked back and forth between his long rock beard, and the miniature smoking volcano that was the top of his head.

"Ah... I thought I felt a presence ... but what a surprise to find young humans," the old Goron said in his deep, shaking voice. "Word has come to me of you ... and if Gor Coron has faith in you, then your hearts must be true. I am one of the four Goron elders. Gor Amoto is my name. You are heroic, young humans. Please, you must lend this tribe your power. Take the key shard I've left for you on the table over there, and the map with it."

I looked over to where his eyes did, spotting the key shard he spoke of on a small table. I went over to it and picked up the big blue and gold hunk, and the yellowed map of the mines.

"When merged with the other key shards, you'll be able to get inside the room where our patriarch, Darbus, is being held," Gor Amoto said. "Each of us three elders keeps a piece. You must hurry to the other elders!" He wagged his cane, but quickly put it back down when he nearly toppled over.

I put the key shard in my pouch and looked at the map. It didn't seem like it would be too difficult to get to Darbus. There were only two floors, and we had already been through all of the first one. The second looked a bit more complicated, but I figured the lines on the map would be easier to decipher when we actually got to the rooms they represented, if we even would need the map at all. I folded up the map and put it in my pouch next to the key shard.

I thanked Gor Amoto for the map and the shard, and then climbed up the ladder to the upper half of the room. A high-pitched clucking noise brought me attention to a collection of pottery, and I saw something poking out of one of the pots.

"Ooccoo?" I said.

I walked around to the pot and picked it up. I flipped it over, and Ooccoo fell out of it. She stood up and shook out her feathers.

She looked just as weird the second time meeting her as she did the first.

"Gracious, you're that nice girl who helped me out the other day! How nice to see you again!" Ooccoo said.

"Yeah... So, uh, find your son?" I asked.

"Why, yes I did! Let me introduce you! Ooccoo Jr.!"

The pot next to the one she had been in stirred, and then out came a baby-sized disembodied head with cracked yellow skin, beady pink eyes, and wings where its ears should have been. The wings flapped up and down so fast they blurred as Ooccoo Jr. flew up to me and stared me dead in the face with his creepy blank expression. I heard Link walk up behind me and make a quiet exclamation of shock at the sight of him. I was sure that Ooccoo Jr. would feature in my nightmares if I ever had them.

"He can warp you out of here, and then right back to wherever you left me," Ooccoo said. "Just let me know if you want to warp out—he's a very shy boy, goodness, yes! May we stash away in your pouch, Link?"

Link opened his pouch, and Ooccoo and her son flew into it. I was very happy in that moment that Ooccoo's kind were just as strange to Link as they were to me, so that I could at least look at him and know I wasn't alone with my creeped-out feelings.


	12. Stupid Hat

We left Gor Amoto's room from the highest door, bringing us to the upper level of the room with the water. There was another door across from us, above the one we originally came in from. The only way to get to it was to walk sideways along the blue magnetic walls. Pulsing, flaming monsters crawled along them. Link told me that they were called Torch Slugs, and that they were one of the weakest monsters out there. He put his iron boots back on and we stepped onto the magnet walls, and I let him take care of the things. I was too scared of accidentally dropping my sword down into the water below.

Link and I came back out in the room that had Dodongos in it, on a ledge we couldn't reach before. I stopped and pulled out the map. Something was wrong.

"Look at the map of the second floor, Link," I said. "We're on it right now, but this room looks nothing like it does on the map. There're all these paths and dead ends and a door on there, but none of it matches up."

Midna came out of my shadow and looked at the map. "It _does_ match up."

"No, it doesn't," Link said. "All there is of the second floor in this room is what we're standin' on right now. It doesn't match up at all. Should we go back to Gor Amoto?"

"No, you two should _look_ _up_ ," Midna said.

We looked up at the ceiling. It was shimmering blue, with normal rocks outlining an array of paths. I looked back and forth at the ceiling and the map.

"...It all matches up," I confirmed.

"Exactly like I said. What would you two do without me?"

"We probably would'a stepped on that switch over there and found out about the ceiling ourselves," Link said, pointing forward.

"Well, I'm glad we didn't have to find out the hard way that that's one of those activating switches," I said. "At least we can be prepared for it shooting us up to the ceiling now..."

It turned out that knowing ahead of time that it was going to make us fly up to the ceiling didn't make it any more pleasant. Once again, Link's boots allowed him to land on his feet, while I smacked up against the ceiling on my back. It was even worse this time, since the ceiling was so much higher up than the overhang was in the last room. I groaned as I struggled to get to my feet, my sword and gun trying to hold me to the magnet.

The map quickly became a hundred times more confusing hanging upside-down from the ceiling. I couldn't tell as easily which path lined up with which path on the map like I could when we were viewing them from below. We accidentally took a path that led us down to one of the dead ends first, which was a pretty big setback considering how much ceiling there was and how painfully slow Link's iron boots made him walk. My anxiety levels got higher and higher each extra second we were up there. I tried my hardest to pretend that we weren't upside-down, but it was hard to lie to myself when our hair and Link's hat was falling the wrong way.

"...Link?" I said.

"Hm?"

"...How does your hat not fall off when you're upside-down?"

"...I have no idea."

The correct path brought us down to an alcove with a wooden door, that led back outside to the main area of the mines. We followed a metal grated path down to the ginormous base of one of the cranes, and I noticed that the bottom of the cranes were magnetic. I instantly got a bad feeling.

Three Bulblins ran around from the other side of the base, clubs at the ready. Now that I really looked at the green things, I realized that there actually were differences between them and the purple Bokoblins we saw in the Forest Temple. The Bulblins had glowing red eyes, they wore a full getup unlike the Bokoblins who simply wore loose pants and shoes, and they didn't look like ugly old man-apes, though they were still ugly. I put my left arm out to stop Link from meeting them halfway with his sword, and I shot each of them.

I smiled triumphantly as I holstered my gun. "And the Hero's Shade said my gun wouldn't help me here. I'd like to see a swordsman try to kill enemies that fast."

"I'm sure he could," Link said. "He's really somethin' else."

Link and I combined our weight on a nearby switch, activating the crane's magnet and making it swivel around. It stopped above three separate docks—one where we first came into the main area, another connected to where we were, and another on the other side of the volcano. The magnet deactivated for a few seconds above each dock.

I didn't realize that Midna had come out of my shadow until I heard her say, "Doesn't _that_ look fun?"

* * *

It wasn't.

In fact, I would have preferred to hike up Death Mountain five more times over hitching a ride on those cranes. By the time Link and I were dropped off at the final dock, I was wondering how I didn't have irreversible brain damage from being slammed onto the cranes and onto the docks every time.

At least the room we walked into was another cool room, though the presence of water and gigantic water striders did take some of the sweet relief away from me. The Tektites, as Link called them, hopped on the water on their way over to us, making it hard to get the timing right for me to shoot them. Link ended up killing them all with his sword before diving into the water. He drank the water again, and again I told him off for it—I might have been overly cautious in the last room, but there was no way the water in this room wasn't contaminated from the Tektites. He shrugged it off, and to make a point that he didn't care, he filled up both of his canteens with the water.

I noticed something light in my peripheral vision, and when I searched for what it was, I saw a silver key down at the bottom of the water. "How about you stop drinking that nasty water and go get the key down there?"

Link dove down to get it, and as he did, I started to hop over the stepping stones to get to a large closed gate at the other side of the room. I saw two Bulblins past the gate, guarding spinning metal contraptions that looked like wardrobes.

"Van—oh, there you are," Link said. I looked back to see him swimming over to me. "Thank Hylia you noticed that key. I never would have. We'd've been stuck in here forever."

"Maybe you could have if you would wear your glasses," I said. He gave me a confused look, and that's when I remembered that he had never told me he wore glasses. "Saw them in your house," I said before he could ask.

Link climbed out of the water and brought the key up to the gate, only for us both to find out that there was no keyhole. He dropped the key into his pouch and then wedged his fingers into the narrow gap between the sides of the gate so he could try to pull it open himself, but his attempts were in vain. Rather than just watching his pitiful attempts, I looked around the room; there had to be some other way to get the gate open, since there wasn't a door or any other way into the next room. Up on a high ledge, which looked to only be accessible by ascending another magnetized wall, was a blue diamond that looked awfully suspicious.

I knew that the diamond had to be our way into the next room, but I wasn't sure what exactly we had to do to it to make it work its magic for us. Maybe we would have to get up to it and push it into the ground. Maybe we would have to open it up somehow.

' _Or maybe I can just shoot_ _it_ _._ '

The laser ricocheted right off the diamond and would have struck me if my reaction time hadn't been fast enough, but my plan worked. The diamond turned yellow, and the gate started to open, making a disgusting grating noise that made me cringe in discomfort. The sound caught the attention of the Bulblins, and they finally noticed us standing there. They screeched as they ran over to attack us. Link wiped them out without a problem.

"Thanks for ... whatever you just did to open up the gate," Link said.

I stayed where I was and surveyed the room. Link proceeded in figuring that the coast was clear, only for one of the spinning wardrobes to stop and shoot a beam of lava at him. He did a backflip to get away from it, and the lava beam stopped.

"How did it know I was standing there?!" Link yelled.

I could barely even think about what he said. "How the _hell_ did you just _backflip?!_ "

Link ran back to me, but he kept his eyes on the wardrobe until he was by my side. "There's gotta be an enemy in there or somethin'," he answered himself. "And—I've always been able to backflip...?"

I stared at him incredulously for a few seconds before I started to think about the wardrobe. "If we were in my world, I'd say that it located you by a sensor that automatically went off when you got within a radius of it, sending a signal to shoot at you, without the help of a living being, but... I guess you could be right about there being an enemy in there, since Hyrule's technology isn't as advanced as my world's," I said. I shrugged. "Is ' _magic_ ' an acceptable answer for how it's able to track you down and shoot a beam of lava at you?"

"Beam," Link repeated. " _That's_ what they are. _Beamos_. They just don't look or act like the ones I've read about. The ones I've read about shot beams of electricity, like your gun."

I hummed. "I guess your world isn't so primitive after all. ...Even if you all rely on magic to create high-tech things instead of science."

"We're just gonna have to avoid them. The only way that I know Beamos can be killed is with bombs, and we don't have any."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

Rather than voicing my idea, I decided to test it out. I waited for one to spin around until the pink circle that lava got shot out of was facing us, and then I shot at it. The pink part shattered, and the whole machine whirred and made clunky noises as it came to a stop.

"That wasn't in any of the books..." Link said.

"Neither was my gun."

I shot at and deactivated the other one when it came around, allowing us to get to the locked door to the following room without having to worry about them. It led back outside, though the area enclosed by the volcano's earthen walls didn't seem to have any magma like the other outside area did. Along with another metal crane, there were wooden towers and ramps, patrolled by Bulblins, that connected to the walls. At once, I saw the Bulblins each pull out something like candles. It wasn't until those ' _candles_ ' suddenly shot towards us that I realized what they truly were. An arrow with a flaming broadhead impaled the wood of the deck Link and I were standing on, just yards away from us. Before I had the chance to freak out in fear of the wooden deck catching fire, the small flames of the arrow flickered away.

"I don't think I'll be able to shoot them down from here, but if we get any closer they'll be able to shoot us..." I said.

"What? Why can't you shoot them?" Midna asked. "You had no problem hitting the Beamos."

"Those Bulblins are _way_ further away. The laser would end up dying out before it would actually get the chance to hit them." While what I said was probably true, I decided to leave out the fact that I probably couldn't aim my shots correctly from such a distance. I'd really only practiced with my gun a tiny bit before coming to Hyrule, just enough to make Mr. Rider feel comfortable sending me away by myself.

"Well, I don't think Link's boomerang could kill them, and I don't feel like wasting my magic on them, so it looks like you two are just gonna have to book it as fast as you can to that door over there. I'm going to take a nap."

"Midna! Come on," I groaned.

"I _said_ I'm taking a nap. Coming all the way up the mountain sure was hard work... I'm just _exhausted_."

Link gently placed his calloused fingertips on my arm, drawing my attention to him. He didn't say anything, but I could tell what he wanted to say from his eyes. He was telling me that he knew just as well as I did that it wasn't fair that we had to risk our lives and blood just because she would rather nap than ' _waste_ ' her magic, and that there was no point fighting with her about it. It was supposed to calm me, but it really only made me angrier. How was he _okay_ with just letting her get away with her bullshit?!

I clenched my fists and let out a disgruntled sigh. "Let's just go. You first, since you've got a shield."

With a nod, Link pulled his shield off his back, and held it out in front of him, high enough up so that he could see where to run. I ran behind him, staying leaned over just in case an arrow would manage to fly over his shield. I hurried ahead of him when we neared the door so that I could open it while he continued to guard us from the onslaught of arrows with his shield. I struggled to open the door, and we slipped inside with it barely a fourth of the way open. It rolled back over and closed with a slam.

After making our way across the room over some ramps, we entered the room of the next Goron elder. While the last one we saw was by far the smallest I'd seen, this one was by far the creepiest. His lower lip was dangling off his face, and he looked emaciated. His big blue eyes were sunken in, and his cheekbones and ribs were protruding heavily. His appearance got me wondering about Goron's internal anatomy, their eating habits, their lifespans, and all the other intricacies of their beings, so much so that I barely picked up what he said aside from his name until he handed Link a key shard and said something about _dangers_. I perked up then to listen.

"But there is something that may help you... A weapon said to have been left in this mine by a Hero of old. It is beyond price, so we have protected it through generations. Now, it could aid in our salvation. The Hero's weapon is stored safely up ahead, protected by a guard. Speak to him, and take it with you, with the blessing of the Gorons."

As we were leaving Gor Ebizo's room, I grabbed the new key shard from Link and dropped it into my pouch with the first one. The new room that we went to was another one filled with lava—I could tell before I even stepped in and saw it all. It was a straight shot over to another door, but a Goron that had to be at least fifteen feet tall stood in between the two doors on a giant magnet suspended above the lava by chains that looked much too thin.

" _Humans?_ " the Goron's voice boomed through the room. He stood and rubbed his armored fists together. "What business do humans have coming here? None! No business! This place is forbidden!"

"We just want to get the Hero's weapon!" I said.

Even from a decent distance away, I could see that what I said sparked a flame in his eyes. "I will protect the treasure from you at all costs!"

As the Goron began stomping his way towards us, Link and I shared a glance at each other, and I figured that we were thinking the same thing. The Goron couldn't exactly chase both of us at the same time, and with his weight slowing him down greatly, we could just run around him.

But when we both took off onto the magnet at the same time, Link shouted, "What are you doing?! Go back!" at me.

I ignored Link and ran past the Goron with ease, despite the magnet's pull on me. I was steps away from making it to the other side when the chains holding the magnet snapped. I threw myself forward, just barely able to grab onto the ledge in time. I pulled myself up to safety, heart beating in my chest as fast as it could. I turned back around and looked down, preparing myself for the worst. A sigh escaped me as I saw that the magnet hadn't been completely engulfed by the magma below. Link was fine—ignoring the fact that he was trapped down there with an angry fifteen feet fall living rock and he had no way to get back up.

I watched him anxiously from above. The Goron continuously tried to punch Link and failed, and Link continuously tried to stab the Goron and failed. It seemed like the fight was going nowhere when Link finally spotted an opening, and used our technique from earlier to get the Goron to curl up into a ball. Rather than jumping up onto his back to catapult himself up, he grabbed the Goron and threw him down into the magma. The Goron climbed back up onto the magnet, his tremendous weight tilting it so much that I feared it would tip over entirely. If Link hadn't been standing on the other side wearing his iron boots, he definitely would have been a goner.

The magnet stabilized as the Goron got back on the center of it. He didn't try to attack Link again. I guessed that he was talking to Link, but I was too high up to hear what he was saying. The magma began to bubble and rise, the magnet raising with it, until the magnet was back up as high as it had been. Link hopped out of his iron boots and walked my way, looking a lot less pleased than I thought he would be.

"What did he say?" I asked as we began to walk towards the door.

"He said I could have the Hero's weapon as long as I use it to save the patriarch," Link answered, opening his mouth the absolute smallest amount necessary to get his words out.

"Did he break your jaw or something?"

Link lightly shook his head, and I pursed my lips. He opened the door slower than he did all the other times, and we stepped through. It was brighter in the new room, allowing me to see just how red his face was.

"Then what's wrong with your face?" I asked.

He glanced over at me. It wasn't _quite_ like the death glare Malo gave me, but it was close enough to make me worry that I just made him hate me.

"I wasn't trying to be rude, it's just that you're so red and barely opening your mou—"

"I feel sick," Link quickly interrupted, coming to a halt. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Gimme a minute and just— _shh_."

I stood there by his side for several awkward seconds before deciding to go ahead and open the treasure chest in the room while waiting. Inside was a wooden and metal bow and a quiver filled with arrows. When I turned back around, items in hand, Link was on his hands and knees at the edge of the ground, vomiting down into the magma. I slowly walked over to him. I couldn't recall a time where I ever watched someone else get sick, or a time where I ever even got sick myself, so I wasn't sure what to do.

"You okay there?" I asked when it seemed he was done.

He sighed and sat on his legs, his head down and brows furrowed together. " _Shhh_."

"Do you have a headache or something?" Midna asked in what was probably the loudest not-screaming voice she could muster.

Link's hands flew up to his head. " _Yes_ ," he nearly hissed out.

"It'd probably go away if we got out of this heat," Midna said. "So maybe you should just get up and hurry up to the last Goron elder."

After a moment, Link nodded and slowly started to get to his feet. I frowned as I noticed him wobble a bit.

"He's _sick_ , Midna," I said.

"He won't be once we're out of here."

"He won't _get_ out of here if he ends up falling into lava because he's too sick to stand up straight!"

"'m fine, Vanna," Link said, words somewhat slurring together. "We... We'll jus—just hurry. We're almost done..."

I wanted to say that it was painfully obvious that he wasn't fine, but there wasn't a point. It was two against one, even though I could see that Link didn't actually want to side with Midna. He only did because admitting the truth would come with the consequence of her complaining.

He reached his hand out, and it took me a moment to realize that was his way of asking for the bow. I handed both it and the quiver over. Once the quiver was secure around his back, he nocked an arrow and aimed it at a rope holding up a drawbridge. On his first try, the arrow sliced through the rope, and the bridge slammed down loudly. Link's face scrunched up, but as quickly as it did, it fell back to being normal—and his body fell as well.

"Link!" I knelt down beside him on the ground and shook him a few times. "Link, wake up!"

When he didn't move, I shook him even harder, but he still lay there unconscious. I gently smacked his face a few times, and again nothing came of it. My hands curled up into fists at my sides. I _knew_ he was going to end up having a heat stroke.

"Aww," Midna cooed as she appeared at my side.

"' _Aww_ ,' _what_?" I said.

"You're worried about him!" Midna giggled. "How very sweet of you."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course I am! I know there's no way I can fight that _Fyrus_ guy by myself, and you need that Fused Shadow so you can bring my bracelet back and I can go home, and if Link dies, then ... I really am trapped here."

"Do you think he's going to die?"

I grabbed my phone out of my pouch. "No. I'm not letting him."

I saw Midna hover over my shoulder to look down at my phone in the corner of my eye. "What are you doing?" she asked.

' _S_ _orry if you're busy but I need help. It's urgent. What do I do if somebody's having a heat stroke,_ _he's unconscious, and I have no access to a hospital or doctor or anything cold?_ '

I sent the text to Zi's mom as fast as I could, ignoring Midna's question. She was the only doctor I knew and could rely on in a situation like the one I was in. My eyes flickered back and forth between my phone and Link every few seconds, either to see if Mrs. Rider texted me back yet, or if Link was still breathing.

' _Bring him to the coolest place you can find, take off any clothes he doesn't need to wear, and fan him off._ _If you have water, wet his skin._ '

I read the message aloud for Midna's sake, and as soon as I was done, I yanked off Link's hat. I wasn't going to bet on him wearing underwear or not, so I settled on taking off everything except his pants. It felt wrong to take an unconscious person's shirt off, but I had to hope he'd prefer his life over modesty, especially after I had already seen him shirtless once before. His feet were littered with blisters from not wearing socks, and I was sure it was for that same reason that his feet somehow managed to stink even more than his armpits.

I poured small amounts of water from my canteen here and there on his body, but I focused most of it on his dry face since his clothes had still been damp in the first place. The only orders I had left to do once I felt his skin was sufficiently wet were to fan him off and bring him to the coolest place I could find. There was no way I could possibly drag Link back to one of the cool rooms with water in it, but even those didn't seem like they would suffice, because they were really only cool in comparison to the infernal heat of all the other rooms.

"Ooccoo!" I exclaimed.

I snatched his pouch out from under him and opened it up. Ooccoo and her son flew out, enlarging back to their normal size as they did. It hadn't even been that long since I had last seen them, yet again I found myself stunned by how freaky they were.

"Can your son warp us out of here down to the spring in Kakariko? Please?"

Midna groaned. "Just wait for him to wake up here! Why are you trying to waste time?!"

"Because he might not wake up at all if he stays here! Why are _you_ so apathetic even when Link could _die?!_ " I said. "I don't want him to get out of here to waste time, I want him to get out of here to _save his life._ I think you're forgetting that if he dies, you're not getting your powers back."

She hid in my shadow again with a humph. " _Whatever_."

"Yes, yes, you can warp out!" Ooccoo said. "You'll return right here, so there are no worries! Just ask him whenever you are ready! Now, bon voyage!"

Before her son got a chance to do anything, I hurried and stuffed Link's discarded clothes into his pouch. Ooccoo Jr. made unintelligible babbling noises as he flew in circles around us, going faster and faster until my vision went black. Unlike when Midna used a portal to get us out of the Forest Temple, Ooccoo Jr.'s warping lacked the strange breaking-apart feeling and didn't leave me with a headache. The sudden change in temperature shocked me even though I was expecting it. We appeared just in front of the spring in the same positions we had been in before. Ooccoo Jr. scurried into Link's pouch that was still open in my hands, and I sat it to the side.

Remembering how the spring's water healed Beth's arm, I scooped some of it up in my hands and poured it over Link's blistered feet. For just a second, his toes curled up. I moved closer to his head and again lightly smacked his cheeks a few times. His brows drew together, lips slightly parted, and he let out a tiny groan.

"Link, wake up," I softly said.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Midna said. She came out of my shadow, hovered right over Link's face, and shouted, " _Wake up!_ " at the top of her lungs.

Link's body jolted and his eyes snapped open. Midna retreated to my shadow, but not until after she gave me a snobby ' _I did it and you didn't_ ' look. Link slowly pushed himself up so he was resting back on his hands. He looked shocked for a second, and then he just looked confused.

"Uh... Where's my shirt and my boots?" he asked. His hand flew up to the back of his head. "And my hat?"

I crossed my arms. "Your dumb ass had a heat stroke because of that stupid hat. I had to take some of your clothes off and get you out of the mines so you wouldn't die. You're welcome."

"Thanks," Link said with a sigh. His eyes narrowed slightly. "...Did you just call my hat stupid again?"

* * *

 **Chapter 13 should be out soon, and if it's not I want someone to kick my ass.**

 **MoorePrimary:** I'm happy you're into my interpretation of an OC insert! And thanks for saying you hoped to see me back soon. Seeing comments like that pushes me to get back on track when I would otherwise stay distracted for way longer :)

 **Guest and FALLING-ANGEL24:** Thank you!

 **Jack54311:** I believe you mixed this story up with another one about 'the change' because I'm not quite sure what change you could be talking about...? The only change I can think of is that I changed the plot revolving around Colin by making him more injured than he was in the game. And yeah, all her stuff is waterproof! I think it'd be weird if everything _wasn't_ waterproof by the 2100s. Link and Vanna's magic pouches are waterproof as well, so Vanna's phone would be fine in there even if it wasn't waterproof, along with all their other items that could be damaged by water.


	13. A Life Lost

At my insistence and Midna's resistance, Link agreed to get checked out by Renado before heading back to the mines. Link slowly staggered barefoot along the dirt road that made up Kakariko Village, my hand hovering over his arm in case he stumbled. I had really wanted to go fetch Renado by myself and bring him back so Link wouldn't have to exert himself, but Link thought it would be better for him to just go along. He said he felt fine, really, it was just that his feet hurt. I kept a watchful eye on him anyways, not trusting him to tell the truth when it came to how bad he felt.

The lobby of the Elde Inn was empty when we entered. I told Link to wait a second while I got Renado, then went upstairs to the hotel's lone room. Colin was sleeping on his bed while Beth, Luda, and Renado looked over him, and Talo was frowning over in his direction from a bed in the corner. I approached Renado and reached up to tap him on his shoulder. Once I had his attention, I asked if he would go downstairs with me to check out Link. He nodded and followed me down to the lobby, where Link had taken a seat on a stool.

"He had a heat stroke in the mines," I told Renado. "I just want to make sure he's okay to head back so we can finish up in there."

Renado questioned Link on how he felt both before his heat stroke and afterwards, briefly looked him over, then walked into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of red liquid. Link downed it in seconds. He thanked Renado and handed it back to him without a trace of the medicine left in it.

"It is called _Death Mountain_ for a reason, you know," Renado said. "Humans are not made to be able to survive for long in such extreme conditions. Do not spend more time there than you must."

"So I'm good to go?" Link asked.

Renado nodded. "Just try to take it easy for the rest of today."

"Before we go," I said, looking up at Renado, "will you tell him to keep his hat off?"

"It would certainly be wise to not wear a heat-retaining item of clothing inside a volcano."

I gave Link the ' _I told you so_ ' look, to which he rolled his eyes back. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the clothes I had taken off of him, sans his hat.

"Should you begin to feel off again, listen to what your body is telling you," Renado went on. "If there is nothing stopping you from leaving the volcano when you need to, then do it. Continuing to fight when you need to stop is a sure way to hurt yourself."

Once Renado was upstairs, I paraphrased what he said. "Nothing's stopping you from leaving when you need to. You don't have to keep fighting." It wasn't like I wanted to convince Link to back out—I'd be screwed if he did—but I still wasn't over our little fight from earlier in the day, and Renado's words reminded me of it.

It seemed to take Link a second for what I said to go through. He sighed. "I _can't_ just go back to Ordon whenever I want to. I don't know what else I gotta tell you to get that through your head."

"But you _can_. Even Renado thinks so."

"But. I. _Can't_." Link slipped his shirt back over his head. "It's my destiny to defend Hyrule. I _have_ to. I fight because I have no choice."

"I don't understand what makes you think you don't have a choice," I said, my words coming out harsher than I intended them to.

"I," Link said, sitting up straight, "am the Hero Chosen by the Goddesses. I can't go against their will."

I rolled my eyes. "Uh huh. And how do you know that you're ' _the Hero Chosen by the Goddesses_ '? Did an angel appear to you in a prophetic dream?"

"A Light Spirit relayed it to me."

I was reminded of the night when Link told me a Light Spirit had been talking to him, when he was staring straight ahead and listening intently, and I saw and heard nothing but the rustles of the trees and the trickling water in the spring. I genuinely worried that he was schizophrenic or something. It was one thing to believe in their existence, like Midna seemed to, but another to believe they were talking to him personally. "So, how come only _you_ saw and heard that Light Spirit down in Faron? Why didn't it appear to me?"

Link shrugged. "I guess Faron had nothing to say to you." He paused. "Do you ... not believe in the Light Spirits?"

"No, I don't believe in them. Or your ' _Golden Goddesses_.'"

He stared at my face blankly, like he was expecting me to crack any second and tell him I was just joking. "...I understand you not believing in the Light Spirits—I've heard of some people from Hyrule not believing in them either, since they've never seen or heard from them like you—but everyone _knows_ the Golden Goddesses are real. Maybe you don't believe in them because they didn't create _your_ world, but they definitely created mine."

" _Su_ _uu_ _re._ "

"Vanna—"

"Believe whatever you want to," I interrupted him, holding my hands up. "I'll believe in the Light Spirits when I see one. And maybe then I'll consider believing that this world was created by Goddesses who shaped your destiny."

He breathed out a short laugh and shook his head. "No wonder you and Midna clash so much. You're too much alike."

" _What?!_ " I nearly screeched. "I am not _anything_ like her!"

"You're both so ... _stubborn_. It's ridiculous."

I huffed and crossed my arms. "Well you're a pushover."

"I know," he said under his breath. "I know."

* * *

Back in the mines, neither of us said anything.

I felt both better and worse at the same time. There was no resolve from our conversation, but at least there was closure in having it. It left me with an understanding of where Link was coming from, even if I thought it was absurd. I couldn't believe he had the gall to say that I was like Midna, though. I had no problem conceding that we were both stubborn, but that was absolutely it. I had nothing else in common with her.

Even without talking to each other, getting to the last Goron elder was quick. When he handed over the last key shard, I got out the other ones and slotted them all together. I swapped out the completed key for the map as Link and I left the Goron's room. Darbus's location was marked on the map by a drawing of a skull.

Since I had the map and knew where to go, I lead the way. Link followed behind me silently, coming forward only to kill the Torch Slugs and flaming bats ahead of us with his newly acquired bow and to open the door. Once we were through and back outside, we were up on the dock of a magnetic crane we couldn't reach before. It dropped us off in front of the room that we first saw Beamos in. Once we got through it, we would be back outside where the Bulblins were guarding the ramps, and from there we just had to take a different path to get to Darbus. I started trying to open the door, but it wasn't too long before Link came up beside me and rolled it open with ease. I contemplated thanking him—I really was thankful he had opened it, because I admittedly was a weakling and the doors were surprisingly heavy and hard for me to move—but it still felt too soon to say anything to him after our last little skirmish.

Link opened the door leading back outside as well, and then he systematically began to shoot down the Bulblins with his bow and arrows. He didn't miss his targets on the ones that were closer to us, but the further away they were, the more tries it took. We couldn't move any closer to them though, because already their own arrows were just feet away from hitting us. No matter how many times Link tried, he just couldn't get the last three who were the furthest away from us. When he had run out of his own arrows and had to carefully reach forward and grab some of theirs that had missed us, he was starting to get visibly frustrated. I couldn't stay quiet anymore.

"You can't see them, can you?" I said.

He sighed. "I can _kinda_ see where they are when they have their fire arrows out. Otherwise... No. It's all a blur." Link pursed his lips for a second, then dropped his bow-wielding arm to his side and turned to look at me. "Do you think you could, maybe...?"

My eyebrows raised. "Uh, there is _no_ way."

"But your vision is good, isn't it? You can see 'em just fine."

"Well, yeah, but, I mean..." I stuttered. "I've never held a bow in my life."

Link held it out to me. "Neither have I before today." Before I could make an assertion of my disbelief, he started speaking again. "I haven't. I mean it." He held the bow out closer towards me. "Just try to do exactly what you saw me doing."

I hesitated before giving in and grabbing the bow. Link handed me an arrow, and I tried to hold the bow and arrow exactly how he did. "Like this?"

"...Good enough. Now just aim and let go."

I took a few moments to line up my shot, and when I felt it was right, I let go of the arrow. It wasn't right, missing the Bulblin I was aiming for by a good twenty feet, but I at least had it in the right direction it needed to be going. I was slightly embarrassed with Link watching me, feeling like he definitely would have gotten it on the first try if he could only see. I nocked another arrow and aimed it much higher, but that time it was too high. I tried again, and again, and again, gradually lowering my aim every time, until I finally hit the Bulblin in the head and it died. I smiled and jumped up and down, loudly proclaiming that I did it, only to settle down when I remembered that Link was still watching me. Embarrassment washed over me again when I looked over to see him looking like he was trying not to laugh.

"Good," Link said, smiling. "Do it again."

It was slightly easier the second time, and slightly easier again the third time, though still quite difficult, but I did it. My work done, I held the bow out to Link for him to take.

"...You don't like using your sword, do you?" It was a question, but he worded it more like a statement.

I shrugged. "Not really. I really don't know because I've barely gotten to use it, but I don't think I'll ever be that comfortable whipping around a giant knife."

"Okay." Link took his quiver off and tried to hand it over to me.

"Link, I—"

"You'll get good, you just need practice. Then I can handle close-distance fighting and you can handle long-distance. Sound good?" he said, nudging the quiver towards me again.

I looked back and forth at the quiver and Link as I contemplated it. A bow was a lot closer to my gun than a sword ever would be. It was also a lot lighter than a sword, so it would be easier to use if I could only better my aim. I could keep a safe distance from enemies with it, too.

"Fine," I said, grabbing it and putting it over my shoulder.

I put the bow into my pouch, and we started on our way across the ramps. I used my gun to kill a Beamos that was on the opposite side of the way we originally left the room from, and we went up a ramp that it had been blocking. Link used his iron boots on a switch to activate what I hoped was the last magnetic crane we'd ever have to use. We hitched a ride on it, and it brought us over to a bridge held up by a rope. I opted for shooting the rope with my gun, and the bridge slammed down just when the magnet dropped us. Feeling slightly disoriented, I checked the map. Once we got through the room past the bridge, which looked short enough, we would be in Darbus's room.

There were a few more Bulblin archers in the next room who were oblivious to our entrance. I nearly brought out my gun, since they were close enough for me to aim at with it, but I decided that it would be good to practice my aim with the bow and arrow on them. Killing them in fewer tries than the last ones gave me a confidence boost, even though it probably shouldn't have since they were much closer anyways.

The giant door, with its equally giant lock, that would open up into Darbus's room was just past another bridge. Like in the Forest Temple, I had to get up on Link's shoulders to get the key into the lock. Our movements were better coordinated this time, the lock falling and me getting down without a hitch. My heart started to beat harder in anticipation of what was beyond the door. I couldn't imagine something scarier than Diababa, but video game logic told me that Fyrus would have to be a step beyond it.

Link and I rolled the door open together—though it was debatable how much I truly helped—and entered the room. It was quite dark in there, the only source of light being the magnetic floor emanating a soft blue glow. In the middle of the room was a gargantuan creature, all black and shadowy like Midna, with his ankles chained to the ground and his arms chained to two of the pillars circling the room. He had some sort of helmet on, though it was hard to distinguish in the darkness.

An orange gem resembling a cat eye on his helmet suddenly lit up, supplying more light to the room. It was only after I got over that jump scare that I realized what I thought was a helmet was actually just his head. Two beady eyes glowed along with the gem, and the extra light allowed me to see that he had giant fangs protruding from his mouth. He hunched over so his head was as close to us as possible and roared like a bear, his smoldering breath blowing against us like a strong gust of wind. He stood up and looked at his cuffed wrists. He threw his head back, let out another roar, and his body erupted into flames. With staggering ease, he yanked his hands forward and broke the chains, freeing himself.

As Fyrus began to stomp towards us, I reached into my pouch and grabbed the bow. I remembered how Diababa had an eyeball inside its mouth that we attacked to kill it, and figured that the gem on Fyrus's forehead was essentially his version of that. I missed once, and decided to give myself one more try before booking it to the other side of the room to avoid being stomped on. The arrow collided with the gem on my second try. Fyrus roared in pain, stopping in his tracks and holding his hands over the gem. I was clueless about what to do next. I couldn't shoot him in the gem again with his hands covering it, and there was no way we could get close enough to his flaming body to stab him.

Link grabbed my arm and ran with me behind Fyrus. He put his iron boots on and grabbed one of the chains attached to Fyrus's foot. I wondered why Link had brought me around with him—surely he knew that I wouldn't be of much help him when it came to pulling the chain if that was what he wanted—but his decision made sense when Fyrus tried to walk forward again only to promptly fall over right where we had been standing because of Link pulling at his ankle. The flames covering his body dwindled upon his impact with the ground.

Already I knew how the rest of the fight was going to go. Link ran over to Fyrus's head to attack his weak spot while I backed myself up against the wall and readied the bow again. Link ran back to me when Fyrus stood back up. The monster became engulfed in flames once more, and turned to face us. I shot him in the gem once more, and as I ran around him with Link again, all I could think of was that this had to be the easiest fight. As long as I was quick enough in hitting his gem each time he rose, Fyrus wouldn't be able to do anything. More than likely there would be just one more round, and then the fight would be ours, and we would walk out unscathed.

And naturally, I had to be proven wrong immediately after thinking that. Fyrus stood up and turned to me the second time much quicker than anticipated, and before I could even loose my arrow, Fyrus swung one of his chains like a whip against me, and I flew back into the wall. I slid down and slumped against the wall, throwing my arm over where the chain hit me on my ribs. The bow had fallen out of my hand, and with Fyrus getting closer to me every second, I knew I didn't have time to go forward and get it. I scrambled away along the wall, hoping I could circle back around and get it.

Too caught up by my own movements and the throbbing pain in my ribs and back, I didn't realize that Link had managed to get the bow until he ran over to me with it in his hand. He grabbed an arrow from the quiver, and when Fyrus noticed where we were and started to come over, Link shot his gem. I moved out of the way so that Fyrus wouldn't fall on me when Link tripped him. Fyrus only took a few more slashes from Link's sword before writhing and screaming in the pain of his defeat. His body turned back into a shadow before tiny black squares exploded out of him. A smaller, but still large shadow was in his place, and it fell to the ground as the black squares all came together above Link and formed the second Fused Shadow.

Midna came out of my shadow and floated over to it. "Well done! Now we have two Fused Shadows..." She grabbed it with her hand-hair, and it disappeared behind her back. I slowly walked over to stand next to Link. "You know, you two have been very helpful so far, so as a reward, I'll tell you an interesting story."

I sighed. We were still inside a volcano, and she thought it was a good time to tell us a story.

" _Zant_ ," she spat. "That's the name of the King of Darkness who cast this pall of shadows over this world. He's very strong. Both of you together would still be nothing against him in your current states... But Zant will never be my king! I have nothing but scorn for his supposed strength. Not that Zelda is much better... It still appalls me that this world of light is controlled by that princess. A carefree youth, a life of luxury... How does that teach duty?" Midna turned away from both of us. "...But I guess I shouldn't begrudge her the circumstances of her life. She didn't choose it, after all. And I would never wish harm on her... No, as long as I can get my hands on the Fused Shadows, I'll be just fine."

"Are you done monologuing yet?" I asked.

" _Yes_ , I'm done," she said. With a flick of her wrist, a portal appeared on the ground. "There's only one more Fused Shadow left... Shall we?"

One more. Just one more, and I could go home.

A deep groan brought me out of my daydream about going home. The large shadow had gradually faded out of being a shadow during Midna's monologue, and was back in the form of the Goron who had been corrupted by the Fused Shadow. I was relieved that Darbus didn't have to die after all.

Link and I walked onto the portal, and Midna warped us out. The feeling of breaking up into tiny little slices was still just as jarring to me, and again I got a headache when I was all put back together. We appeared back in the spring at the end of Kakariko Village. Just like the first time Midna had warped us to a spring, Link stared straight forward, supposedly listening to the words of the Light Spirit that lived in the spring. I still didn't see or hear anything. Link's eyebrows raised, and then the corners of his mouth slightly turned up.

"What'd it say to you?" I asked him.

"Ilia is in Lanayru," he said.

I almost forgot about his girlfriend. "So, I guess you want to hurry up and go find her even though Renado told you to take it easy, huh?"

"I know I should take it easy, but something could happen to her. I need to find her as quick as I can," Link said.

"Well then, let's go get rid of the twilight in Lanayru so you can find her," Midna said. "Vanna, you'll have to stay behind again."

I nodded and looked at Link. "I know you want to spend time with your girlfriend, but maybe don't take too long this time?"

Link's eyes widened and he blushed. "What?! Ilia's not my girlfriend! I-I never even had one..."

I raised my eyebrows. It was hard to believe that someone as attractive as him managed to go seventeen years without a girlfriend. "Really? Midna told me Ilia was your girlfriend."

Midna snickered. "He's denying it."

"I'm not denying anything," Link said. He sounded like he was definitely denying something. "Ilia's the only girl in my village that's around the same age as me, and Midna assumed she's my girlfriend because of that, but she's not. She's my best friend. That's all."

' _Good_ ,' I thought. Immediately, I was ashamed of how happy it made me to know they weren't dating, despite it seeming like he wanted to date her. I knew several girls back home who were jealous of me for being Zi's best friend, and I always thought they were being ridiculous, but there I was being just as ridiculous as them. I couldn't help it though. Link was just one of _those_ people, impossible to _not_ be attracted to, pushover or not.

"Oh," I said. "People always assume I'm dating my best friend, too. Or they _did_ , I guess, before I came here. But..." I couldn't help the little smile that crept up on my face. One more Fused Shadow, and then I could go back home and be annoyed at all of Zi's little fangirls. I had never been more excited at the prospect of being annoyed. "I guess you should be going then, huh?"

Link nodded, and Midna hopped into his shadow. "I want to go see Colin real quick first, and I think it's your turn to go get checked out by Renado."

As we started to walk to the Elde Inn, my hand went to my ribs. I didn't feel any breaks or fractures, and most of the pain had subsided already. It only hurt a little when I pressed down on them. I wondered if just standing in the miracle water of the spring for that short amount of time helped to heal me, regardless of the fact that the water didn't even come in contact with my skin. Along our walk, I continuously pressed down on my ribs again and again, seeing if the lingering pain would wear off as quickly as the rest of it did.

Link's demeanor changed when we got to the Elde Inn's deck, and as far as I could tell, for no reason. He suddenly looked plagued with worry, and he raced inside, leaving me behind. He was already over halfway up the stairs by the time I stepped in. I stopped just in front of the door.

I didn't have to follow Link upstairs to know what had happened. The crying I heard was enough.

* * *

 **Thanks to Jack54311, Rojak, and Guest for reviewing!**

 **I really do love subtlety, but I believe a eulogy is in order.** **When I first** **played Twilight Princess and I** **got to th** **e** **part** **where** **Colin** **gets** **in front of the Bullbo** **,** **I immediately** **thought, "** **H** **e ded."** **Then it turned out he didn't die, and I thought, "** **N** **ah, he ded."** **RIP Colin,** **11/19/2006 —** **5/** **12** **/201** **7** **.** **May you live on in our hearts and in our copies of Twilight Princess.**


	14. Spirits

I couldn't just stand there in the Elde Inn and listen to the kids crying upstairs, so I left. Part of me wanted to be there with them and try to comfort them, but the idea of comforting grieving people that I barely knew seemed kind of weird, even if the intentions behind it were nice. I knew that after my dad died, I sought the comfort of my friends and family, not a stranger.

I didn't know what to do. For about a minute, I just stood there on the deck, tapping my fingers on the railing as I finally took the time to thoroughly scan the village from end to end in the daylight. There wasn't exactly much to look at. Most of the run-down wooden houses were boarded up, giving me the feeling that Renado and Luda were the only people who had lived in the village in some time. Near the northern end of the village was one of the few buildings not boarded up, and in front of it was a sign. Some of the letters on it were close enough to their English counterparts that I had no problem telling that it at least said ' _bomb_ _shop_ '— though the painting of a bomb right below it might have helped a touch—but the word above it just looked like ' _bHPheS_ ' to me. I had already figured out what most of those letters really were, but I was unable to figure out what the _P_ in the middle was, leaving me with ' _baPne_ _s_ ' which I was sure couldn't be right.

A bomb shop seemed oddly out of place with Renado in mind. I had only met him the day before, and I only had very few interactions with him, but he didn't seem to be the kind of man who would approve of the usage of bombs, especially in his village. I thought that physical violence could only be a last resort for him, if a resort at all. My curiosity piqued, I made my way over to the building, and knocked on its metal door a few times. It was faint, but I heard a voice call " _Come in!_ "

When I first entered, I didn't see anyone. I only saw a wooden counter, metal stairs to the side of it, and a lot of metal contraptions and pipes lining the underside of the second floor. I walked up the stairs to see a man packing a black powdery substance into a bag. He looked eccentric, almost out of place in Kakariko Village in comparison to Renado and Luda, considering their Native-esque appearance and his cowboy-esque apparel, with his white tank, denim jeans, chaps, and cowboy boots. Like them, at least, it was easy to imagine him as a person from America, albeit from a long time in the past.

"Rena—oh," his voice fell as he turned his head to me. He pushed up his welding helmet. "You ain't Renado. You a customer?" He had a strong Southern accent, and that fact in conjunction with his rounded ears led me to speculate that he was perhaps from Ordon.

"Uh, I don't have any money, so, no," I answered.

"Well, good, because I ain't got anythin' to sell you." He flipped his helmet back down and got back to work. "I can't get the materials I need from the Gorons anymore, so I can't finish makin' more bombs. If they'd just knock off this li'l hissy fit they've been throwing lately..."

"I think they're about done with their ' _hissy fit,_ ' or they should be soon enough. They were having a little _problem_ with their patriarch," I said, unsure of how much the man knew about what had happened with the Gorons in the first place, "but I think he's all better now."

He stopped his work and looked back at me. "You talked to 'em?" After I nodded, the man stood and removed his helmet, and sat it on a desk. "Looks like I'm headin' up the mountain, then! If you get your hands on any money, feel free to stop back by soon. I should have my shop reopened in a few days."

"Before I go—what's the name of this place?" I asked. I wanted to unravel the ' _baPnes_ ' mystery, hoping that it would help me be able to decode any other written things that I might come across.

"Barnes' Bomb Shop. I've got a sign just outside, you know. Look for it if you come back," he said as he started to pick up tools and put them inside a magic pouch.

"Will do," I said with a nod, knowing it would be better to pretend I just hadn't seen the sign. I mentally took note that _P_ 's were _R_ 's, adding to what knowledge I had of Hyrule's writing system.

Once I was outside of the shop, I settled on heading to the store on the other side of town that Malo had gone to earlier in the morning, hoping there would be someone else in there, too. Unfortunately, nobody was in the tiny shop. Displayed on a shelf behind the counter were only three items—a shield that looked very similar in design to the one from Link's basement, a red flagon, and a metal mask in the shape of a hawk's face. I climbed over the counter and picked up the strange mask, and flipped it over to inspect it. The back side of it resembled a pair of binoculars, and when I held it up to my face, I realized that was precisely what it was. An unintentional movement of my finger on a scroll wheel on the side of the mask caused the binoculars to zoom in further. Testing it out, I found that it could zoom in so far that I could see each and every tiny scratch and crack on the wooden floor as if my eyes were right in front of them. They would have been really helpful in the mines when Link was having trouble seeing to shoot the bow.

I put the binoculars back down and picked up the flagon. Something sloshed around inside of it as I moved it, but it felt too thick to be some sort of drink. I opened the top and peeked in. There was red liquid inside; I wondered if it was the same stuff that Renado had given Link to drink. I tried to sniff it, and the hint of a medicinal smell was overpowered by a completely repugnant smell, like sulfur and fire and _heat_. Though I wasn't a stranger to high temperatures by any means, with Jersey being in the high 90s and low 100s all throughout the summer, it wasn't until now that I realized that heat had its own distinct smell that wasn't just the odor of a city packed with millions of sweaty people.

And it took me a second to realize that the awful smell wasn't the medicine. It was _me_.

I couldn't stand having to stink for however many more days until Midna would bring back NEVA, but just taking a bath wouldn't be enough to rid me of the volcano's stench. My clothes smelled even stronger than my body, and they would only continue to make me stink if they weren't washed as well. The only clothing I had that would be at least slightly acceptable to wear was my crop top since I didn't wear that around in the volcano, but I obviously couldn't walk around wearing just that.

I searched through the crates in the shop, hoping that the village's only store that wasn't for bombs would have some clothes in stock, but there were only odds and ends littering the boxes. I left the store with a disgruntled sigh, weighing my options. I couldn't borrow clothes from Luda because she was too small, and I couldn't borrow clothes from Renado or Barnes because they were too big. I had half a mind to steal Epona, ride down to Ordon, and borrow more of Uli's clothes from before she got pregnant, but I didn't know when Link would want to leave for Lanayru or if he would need his horse to get there.

My eyes fixated on one of the houses on the opposite side of the street that wasn't boarded up, then trailed over to the spring. Beyond the shallow waters and the short little waterfall was a large pool of water that, while enclosed by earthen walls on the sides, offered little privacy from the street. However, it was at least far enough back that someone would have to be in the shallows of the spring to really get a good look at anyone back in the pool. I knew that Link and the kids were mourning Colin inside the inn, Renado and Luda were surely giving comfort to them, and Barnes was making his way up the mountain, but I still was nervous about being caught back there.

Ultimately I decided that I smelled too bad to care about there being a fraction of a chance that people I'd never see again would potentially see me taking a bath. I decided to check first and make sure the house I was planning on going into wasn't occupied, and it wasn't. All that was in there was a bed, a disappointingly empty wardrobe, some boxes, and a full-length mirror cracked diagonally propped up against the wall. Knowing that it was going to start to get cold soon, I headed for the spring so that I could get at least somewhat dry before it did.

Once I climbed up the waterfall, I went over to one of the walls where I could stand in the water. I put the bow, quiver, and my gun in my pouch, and pulled out my crop top so I could wash that as well. I kept a look out for anyone possibly coming out of the buildings as I quickly stripped the rest of my clothes off, and then I hurried into the deeper water, leaving my clothes to soak in the shallow.

I wasn't sure if anything I did could really be considered ' _washing_ ,' what with the fact that I had no soap, but I hoped that the spring's healing water could double as cleansing water. I repeatedly ran my hands through my hair and used my top as a rag on my skin until I couldn't smell myself anymore, then attempted to wash my clothes by scrubbing them together. When I was as satisfied as I thought possible, I got back up near the wall, wrung out my hair and clothes, and then slipped everything back on for my walk to the house.

An out-of-nowhere thought made me stop walking abruptly just past the waterfall. Maybe it _wasn't_ implausible for Light Spirits and Goddesses to exist. Hyrule was real when it shouldn't have been. Link was real when he shouldn't have been. Magic was real when it shouldn't have been. It truthfully wasn't much of a leap in logic to believe in Light Spirits and Goddesses, not after I saw how a hunk of glowing stone could turn a giant man made of rocks into a humongous flaming monstrosity. I wasn't sure what sparked a change in my steadfastness, but I thought it had to be something in the water.

I turned back around to the waterfall. "Hey, Light Spirit?" I whispered. "Light Spirit, are you there?"

Nothing. My belief in their nonexistence started to solidify again.

With a sigh, I turned back and headed for the house. As soon as I was inside, I locked the door behind me. I took my clothes back off and hung them in the closet to dry. Like when I got to explore Ordon by myself, I felt an exhilarating rush from being alone as I walked the street of Kakariko Village and entered the house all by myself, but it all came crashing down on me suddenly as I sat on the edge of the bed. It was easy to forget how dreadfully homesick and lonely I was in this world when I had something to concentrate on, even if it was something as simple as where I was walking.

I couldn't handle it. I snatched my phone out of my pouch and called my mom, wishing desperately that the call would go through. I impatiently tapped my fingers on the side of the bed as my phone rung.

" _Hello?_ "

* * *

There was a knock at the door. "Vanna, are you in there?"

I pulled my phone away from my face. "Yes, just a second!" I lifted my phone back up to my ear. "Hey, I gotta go now. I'll call you back tomorrow, okay?"

" _Okay, sweetheart, I'll talk to you then. Goodbye!_ " my mom said.

I said goodbye back, hung up my phone, and went over to the closet. My clothes were damp and cold, but I sucked it up and put them on anyways. When I opened up the door, Luda was standing there, and it was decently dark outside behind her. The nearly-night sky made me aware of just how dark it had gotten in the house while I was distracted by my conversation with my mom.

Her eyebrows drew together. "Oh, my, you're all wet!"

"I needed a bath and didn't have an extra set of clothes or anything to dry off with, so..." I shrugged.

"I could give you some dry clothes to wear," she said. "Another family used to live here, but just this last week..." Luda's face fell. "...They had a daughter about your size. You can have her clothes, if you'd like."

Dead girl's dry clothes or my damp clothes? A sudden shiver made my decision for me. "Th-that would be nice, yeah."

She gave a little smile. "Okay. We've finally got around to making dinner at the inn. Would you like to come over and eat after we get your clothes?"

I accepted her offer, and then she led me over to another house. Luda left the door open so more light could spill inside. The interior looked quite similar to the house I had been in, but with two extra beds and one extra wardrobe.

"They were originally from Castle Town," Luda said as she began to sift through the clothes in one of the wardrobes. "Castle Town fashion is ... quite strange, or at least it is to me. I'm trying to find something simple for you, without many unnecessary layers and accessories, since that seems like what you would want."

What she settled on was fairly simple, like she said: a black elastic belt, a long-sleeved, knee-length, light blue dress with light purple stripes on the skirt and frills at the wrists, a darker blue overshirt of sorts with purple shoulders and lacy hems on its flowing sleeves and draping bottom, and lastly a simple bra and pair of underwear. I thought the dress and top looked tacky and outdated, and I wasn't too sure how I felt about wearing a stranger's underwear, but it would be better than having to wear wet freezing clothes or having to go commando in a dress.

"This dress will make a nice nightgown, as well," she said, laying the clothes down on the bed. She looked at me, her eyes going higher up than my own at first, and then down my body. "Your hair still looks really wet. Do you want me to put it up for you so you don't get your new clothes wet?"

"You don't have to—it's nice enough that you helped me out with the clothes and came and got me for dinner already, and the dinner might get cold soon if we wait around much longer..."

"It's above the fire, it won't get cold." She clasped her hands in front of her chest and grinned. "Please? I really like doing hair, and I'm really quick at it, too!"

"If you don't mind, then sure," I said. It definitely would be nice to not have to worry about my hair making my new clothes just as cold and wet as my other clothes.

She patted the bed next to the clothes, and I sat down on it with my back facing her. She got to work, her delicate fingers making a french braid faster than I imagined even my mother could, and then she wound up the length into a bun just above the nape of my neck.

"All finished!" she announced. "I'll leave you to get dressed, now. Come to the inn when you're done!"

I thanked her, and she left me in the house with the door still opened just a speck for light. I changed into the new outfit, making sure to flip the underwear inside out first at least, and I left my boots on and swapped my pouch over to the new belt. Everything fit a lot better than I expected it would, but I felt strange walking outside. I wasn't familiar with the feeling of a long dress brushing against my legs. There were a few times on my walk to the inn that I swirled around in a circle just to feel how the fabric swooshed around me.

Just inside the Elde Inn, Link, Renado, and Luda were sitting at a round table, and Renado was talking to Link. There was a plate of food on the table between Luda and Link's seats. Luda was eating her dinner, Renado's plate was already empty, and Link was poking at his food pointlessly.

"I got a plate for you," Luda said as she noticed me enter.

I sat down in front of the plate and thanked her once more, and then I looked at Link. He looked awful, his downcast eyes completely bloodshot and face stuck in a pained frown. It was hard to believe that just hours ago he had been holding back laughter from seeing me be so giddy about hitting my target with an arrow for the first time.

As I started eating, Renado resumed talking to Link. "You should really eat your food. You'll sleep better tonight with a full stomach, and a good rest will make your journey to Castle Town tomorrow much more bearable."

Link sealed his lips tighter, but otherwise gave no indication that he had even heard what Renado said. No one said anything more as Luda and I ate our dinners. Once our forks were set down, everything fell into an uncomfortable complete silence for minutes before Link shot up off his stool and walked outside. Without thinking about it, I stood up and followed him out. His brisk pace had already led him to Epona by the time I was out the door. I ran up to him as he was preparing to mount her.

"What are you doing?" I said.

Midna came out of his shadow. "Renado told him that he could get a wagon in Castle Town to bring everyone down to Ordon to hold a funeral for Colin."

"So you're leaving right now? At night?" I asked Link.

He glanced my way briefly before getting up on Epona. Midna shrugged and went back into the shadows, and Link started on his way.

"Wait!" I called.

Epona slowed to a stop. Again, I ran to Link, this time reaching into my pouch and fetching the bow and quiver as I did. I held them up to him.

"You might need them," I said.

He seemed to ponder if he should take them or not before taking them anyways without a word and putting them in his own pouch. With a light kick on both of Epona's sides, Link's horse began to lead him away once more. I watched them until they disappeared, and continued to stand where I was for a while before slowly starting to head back to the Elde Inn. I stopped as I got to the small set of stairs to the porch, and looked behind me, at the spring.

There had to have been something in the water, because I felt like the spring was calling to me, and I couldn't ignore it. I walked to the spring, and didn't stop until the water was halfway up my boots.

"I just want to see you if you're real, just for a second. You don't even have to talk to me," I whispered.

Nothing again. It was _d_ _efinitely_ something in the water.

"Please?"

"They say only the brave can see them," said a tiny voice behind me.

I jumped; I hadn't heard anyone come up behind me. It was one of the children, I knew, but I didn't think I had talked to any of them long enough to be able to differentiate their voices for certain without looking at them. My first thought was that the quiet voice belonged to Colin, even though I knew it couldn't be him. I looked back to see which one it was.

Maybe it _really_ wasn't too implausible for Light Spirits to exist when a glowing apparition of Colin was floating behind me in the spring.

"...That's what my dad told me when I couldn't see Lady Ordona," he said.

I couldn't get myself to talk at first, and when I did, all I could say was " _You're dead._ "

I supposed he technically wasn't the first ghost I had ever seen, but there was a difference between Colin and the Hero's Shade that made me feel like I was really seeing one for the first time. I had never seen the Hero's Shade alive, only dead, and only in a mystical snowy realm in my subconscious that was disconnected from the real world, and now I was completely conscious, completely in the real world, staring at the ghost of a child that I had seen breathing this morning.

"I know," Colin replied, looking down at his feet. He folded his arms behind his back. "But I can't pass on yet."

"You ... _have_ passed on, already," I said slowly, confused.

"I've passed from life. I haven't passed from this world."

I didn't know what to say. I could only stare at his floating blue form silently.

"I can't, yet," he went on. He looked back up at me. "I need to know before I go... Can you promise me something?"

' _If I don't pass out first._ ' I nodded anyways.

"Take care of Link," Colin said quietly. "And make sure everyone ... especially him ... and especially my parents ... know how much I love them."

My mouth fell open, and I struggled to find the words I wanted to say. "L-Link will be back soon, can't you hang on just a little bit longer to see him? And he's going to go get your parents, so you can see them one last time, too. Don't you want to say goodbye?"

"It'll just hurt them more to see me this way... I can't make them hurt any more. If I have to see my parents cry over me..." Colin's eyes closed and his head turned down. "I can't do it. I can't."

"Then—then you don't have to," I said. "I'll ... let them know, okay?"

Colin nodded and raised his head. "But what about Link? Do you promise to stay with him and help him?"

"I promise." I felt horrible having to lie to the kid, but there was no way I was going to stick around and go through however many more dungeons and life-threatening situations that were waiting for Link. Midna would bring back NEVA after the next dungeon, and then I was going to go home and leave her and Link to it.

"Good," Colin said with a smile. "He's really going to need you."

If he was trying to make me feel worse, he was succeeding. "I know..."

He sighed contentedly. "I'm ready to go, now. Please don't forget what you promised me."

Colin closed his eyes, and he disappeared into the wind.

* * *

 **I'm sorry for the wait. I haven't been busy or anything, I've just been feeling pretty awful lately and haven't had the motivation to finish up this chapter until just this past week. I pinky promise that I'm never going to abandon this story though! I have waaay too much of the future chapters written to just throw everything away now. The first part I wrote of this story is actually coming up in either the next chapter or the chapter after that, and since that scene will take up a substantial part of the chapter, the next chapter should be out pretty soon. Even if I do decide for it to be in the chapter after the next one, hopefully it won't take that long for me to update again.**

 **Thanks for 33 favorites and 41 follows! I know that that's absolutely nothing compared to other stories here, but it's a lot to me, so thank you! And I know I'm basically just saying the same thing I said back when I hit 1000 views, but really, I never expected this story to receive as much attention as it has.**

 **JU:** Thanks for the review, it really helped motivate me to finish this chapter up :) I always worry that I'm making everything seem too rehashed, so it's nice to hear that you don't think I do, haha. And yeah, Colin's death is a giant emotional kick in the ass to Link, which is partially why I killed him. I know the " _I must avenge my_ _dead_ _friend_ " trope has been done to death (*ba dum tsss*) but I like Link having a personal reason to continue forward instead of just Midna or the Light Spirits bossing him around.


	15. Brave

For the few days after Link left, I didn't have much to do at all. The first day I mostly spent talking to Zi on the phone, and I occasionally tried and failed to get my mom to respond back to me. In the evening Luda offered to teach me the Hylian alphabet, and I gladly agreed to take her lesson. At night time I walked back and forth on the street, finally stopping at the spring to try to get the Light Spirit to talk to me again before giving up and going back to the little house I had claimed. I checked my phone one last time before laying down to bed, and saw that my mom had finally responded.

' _Jaylene went into labor early_ _._ _Say hello to little_ _Gabriel Cameron_ _Holt! 5lbs 2o_ _z_ '

I should have been happy to see the text and the picture of my nephew and sister that came with it, but I wasn't. I was just upset that I missed out on being there the day of his birth, and that I wouldn't be able to hold him for however many days it would be until we got that last Fused Shadow. The extra pictures that my mom sent of her, and my other sister Kalina and her fiancée Ami taking turns holding him only helped to make me more jealous that they all got to be there and I didn't. I had trouble sleeping that night, both because I was too antsy for Link to just come back already so we could get going and I could get home, and because I couldn't stop seeing the image of Colin's ghost in my head.

The Ordonian children were at least somewhat better on the second and third days. Malo, it seemed, had already cried out all of his tears, but I figured it was just because the four-year-old didn't understand the finality of Colin's death. Beth was handling it the worst, understandably. Colin died because he saved her, and it was hard to not see it as her own fault in a grieving state.

I tried to keep their minds occupied by telling them stories about some things from my world—about spacebuses and primitive transportation like cars, and teleporters, like Mr. Rider's TPorts and NEVA, and his Synthumans and the different kinds of them like the Incubots, and little technological gadgets like my phone. We listened to some of the music I had on my phone together, but they didn't seem interested in the music itself as much as the fact that it was coming out of a ' _tiny flat box_.' I completely lost Beth's interest when I showed them my laser gun. I probably should have realized that a little girl mourning the death of a friend might not be impressed by an object that was made to end lives. Talo and Malo enjoyed it, though, and they insisted on me showing them how to shoot it. I obliterated target after target with them outside until it was time for us to eat dinner.

After the kids went to bed that night, I went back outside by myself, back to the spring. During the time I couldn't sleep the night before, I spent plenty of time thinking about what Colin said. ' _Only the brave can see them._ '

"I'm brave, aren't I?"

I fought a giant venom-spitting plant monster, and a giant chain-whipping fire monster. A coward wouldn't do that, would they? A coward wouldn't have even left Ordon.

So what made Link more brave than me? I did all the same things he did, with the exception of when he had to go into the twilight, and that was only because I couldn't follow him without ' _turning into a spirit_ ,' whatever exactly that was supposed to entail.

I voiced my thoughts to the Light Spirit, but if my words reached it, it didn't care to respond. If it was real, then I was convinced it had to be purposefully trying to rile me up by ignoring me. If I wasn't before, I was officially dead set on seeing it if it was the last thing I did.

Just as I was beginning to head back to the house to go to bed, I heard something in the distance. I stood still and listened. It sounded like the trot of multiple horses, but there was also some other squeaking sort of sound with it that I had never heard before and couldn't place. The sounds got closer and closer. They were coming into the village. I was about to run for my life into the Elde Inn, thinking that it had to be more Bulblins riding on their Bullbos, but then I saw that it wasn't. It was two horses being ridden by two people who were still unidentifiable, and the sound I couldn't place was the noise made by the wooden wheels of a wagon that was rolling along behind the horse in the back.

When they got closer, I could see that the horse and its rider at the front were Epona and Link, and behind them was a black horse being ridden by a sizable woman—Ilia, perhaps, I thought, taking into account her portly father and the fact that Uli was the only thin Ordonian woman—who I couldn't get a good look at with the lack of lighting near the village entrance. I walked up next to Link and Epona, and trailed beside them as they came further into the village.

"Hey, Link," I said.

He peered down at me and gave me a short nod, but said nothing, and then returned his focus to the road ahead. He looked like he was in an even worse mood than he was when he left, somehow. All I knew that he had set out to do was get rid of the twilight in Lanayru, find Ilia, and get a wagon to bring the kids down to Ordon for the funeral. I didn't think that getting the wagon could have been much of an issue, and I was pretty sure he had gotten rid of the twilight in other areas without trouble, so I wondered if Ilia was the problem. Maybe the woman on the horse behind him wasn't Ilia, and he didn't find her in Lanayru like he was hoping.

Link stopped and got off Epona in front of the Elde Inn, and I came to a stop on its porch to wait for him. He walked behind to the back of the woman's wagon as she dismounted. The woman joined me on the porch, and with the firelight from the sconces next to the Elde Inn's doors, I got a better look at her. After managing to tear my eyes away from her chest, I was certain that she wasn't Ilia. She had to be somewhere in her thirties, and she was a Hylian like Link, not a normal human like the rest of the people from Ordon. Even if she was young and round-eared she wouldn't have looked like Bo's daughter, though, with her tan skin, cornrowed red hair, and plump lips. She wouldn't have been that tall in America, but I thought she had to be quite tall in Hyrule, and she was still much taller than me. My face was nearly level with her cleavage, which only made it harder for me to not stare.

"Hello, young miss," the woman said in an English accent. I never thought it was too weird that Renado and Luda had general American accents while Barnes and the Ordonians sounded Southern, despite the relatively close proximity of Kakariko and Ordon, but it struck me as particularly odd that there were people who had a third, completely different accent in just one country.

Though she had a warm smile on her face, something about standing next to her was ... intimidating. Something.

"Hello," I said back quietly.

I looked behind her, where a girl stepped out of the wagon, and then out came Link. At first I thought he was holding a child wearing strange purple and white clothes in his arms, but then I realized it wasn't clothes that made the child purple and white. The child had purple and white skin if it could be called that, and fins, and gills, and flippers for feet, and a head that pointed up in the back like a fishtail. It was a fish person. Link had told me of fish people in the mines—Zoras, I remembered they were called—but that didn't make it any less weird to see one in real life.

I opened up the left door as Link approached, and the woman held open the right for him to have more room to get through. Link walked in with the girl to his right side, obstructing my view of what I now presumed to be Ilia. The woman and I let ourselves in after them, and Link led the way upstairs to Renado. Beth, Talo, Malo, and Luda were all asleep on beds on one side of the room, so Renado ushered us over to the other end so as to hopefully not disturb them.

"What happened?" Renado asked in a hushed voice as he took the Zora child from Link's arms.

"I found him passed out on the road in Castle Town," the girl responded. She had a Southern drawl, and I could see that she had round ears from where I stood behind her, so I concluded that she had to be Ilia.

"I tried to get a doctor to save him, but he said he couldn't help Zoras," the tall woman said. "I'd heard of you before, and I knew you had to be our only hope."

"I will do everything I can to save him," Renado said.

"And..." the woman looked down at Ilia. "She's lost her memory—can't even remember her own name. Could you help her, too?"

 _That_ explained Link's mood. If she couldn't remember her name, then she more than likely couldn't remember Link, either.

Renado nodded. "I will try, but please let me care for the boy first. It would be much appreciated if you would step out, perhaps to the lobby, so I can have some space. I will come see you once I've done everything necessary for him."

We left Renado with the boy—who I would never have guessed was a boy, given his lack of clothing and lack of anything that would normally let you know when someone's a boy—and went back to the lobby, and it was down there that I finally got to face Ilia. She had short blonde hair, wide-set green eyes, and a very upturned nose. While she wasn't my type, I supposed I could see how Link could find her to be attractive ... if she was the only girl around his age that he knew up until now ... and she was. Of course he would think she was pretty. Of course he would settle for a fish-eyed pig-nosed girl if he'd never known anything else, anything better.

...Had I always been such a jealous bitch?

I was taken aback by my own cruel thoughts. She saved the Zora boy, and even though I admittedly didn't know Link that well, I knew she had to be a nice girl if he liked her. It wasn't like it even mattered, anyways; I was going to go home soon and never see anyone from Hyrule ever again.

' _Still_ ,' the unjustifiably envious part of me said, ' _she's not even that cute._ '

We sat around a table, and the woman spoke up when we did. "I can't stop wondering why that Zora boy was in Castle Town by himself. They normally stay up by their domain or in Lake Hylia."

Link pursed his lips, then slowly opened them to speak, keeping his eyes on his folded hands. "I know why," he said. "...Zora's Domain was raided by beasts, so the Queen sent him to Hyrule Castle to let Princess Zelda know. That little boy is the Prince of the Zora, Ralis."

"That was him? The Queen must be worried sick..." the woman said.

"Actually... After he left, she..." Link gulped. "The beasts killed her."

Ilia gasped and held a hand over her heart. "That's awful! Oh, Ralis is going to be crushed when he recovers... What about the King? Is he okay?"

"The King's been dead for a few years, now," the woman answered, though the question was directed at Link. "I remember hearing of Princess Zelda traveling up to Zora's Domain to extend her condolences to the Queen and Prince. She'd just recently been orphaned after losing her own mother, so it was the talk of the town. Looks like she's got a lot in common with Prince Ralis, now, both losing their parents young and having to rule their people alone..."

"How old is Princess Zelda?" I asked. At the look I got from the woman that seemed to say ' _How don't you know?_ ' I tacked on, "I'm not from Hyrule."

"Ah, right—Ordonian, aren't you? Princess Zelda just celebrated her twentieth this year."

I didn't particularly care about correcting her, not when I knew that it was probably going to be the last time I saw her, but I wouldn't have had the chance to even if I wanted to. Footsteps raced noisily down the creaky wooden staircase and over to the table.

" _Ilia!_ " Beth said, throwing herself at the older girl. "Ilia, Ilia, Ilia! You're here!"

Ilia's eyes were wide, and she seemed too distraught to do much else than stare at Beth in confusion. When Ilia didn't return her hug, staying stiff as a board, Beth pulled away and looked at her. She was just as confused as Ilia.

"Ilia can't remember anything right now," Link said.

Beth's face fell even more as she stared into Ilia's eyes and continued to get no recognition from her. "You don't remember me?"

"N-no, I don't," Ilia said. "I'm sorry..."

"But it's me! Beth!"

"Beth," Link said. Once he got her attention, he motioned with his finger for her to come over to him, and she did. He put his hands on his shoulders and spoke to her quietly. "Renado's gonna help her get her memory back. Don't worry about her. Just go back to bed, okay?"

Beth looked over at Ilia one last time before sighing and nodding. "Okay... But I'm going to get a drink first."

Link let go of Beth, and she sauntered off to the kitchen with her head down. Ilia put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands, whispering that she just wanted to lay down already. The woman told her to try to stay awake for a while longer, that she could sleep after being seen by Renado. After Beth went back upstairs, it became uncomfortably silent in the lobby, just like it had been the other night at dinner with Link, Renado, and Luda.

I cleared my throat and stood. "Well, I'm going to step outside for a bit."

I wasn't sure how to get Midna's attention without saying her name, so I just tapped my foot on Link's shadow as inconspicuously as I could and hoped that would get her to hop over into my shadow. Once I saw a flicker of black on the ground, I walked outside. Midna showed herself as soon as I shut the door behind me. I walked a distance away from the Elde Inn so that Ilia and the woman wouldn't hear me talking to Midna and think I was talking to myself.

"Give me the rundown. What happened in Lanayru?" I said.

"Well, you already know just about everything. Link saw Queen Rutela's ghost, cleared the twilight, found Ilia in Castle Town and she couldn't remember him, and that boy was dying, so the lady told Link to take them to Kakariko. Pretty boring, but I think there was a slight fiasco with some monsters on the way here. I don't know. I slept through a lot of it." Midna shrugged. "But anyways, Link's planning on using the wagon in the morning to take all the kids down to Ordon for Colin's funeral, and then he probably won't want to do anything but mope around for a while..."

I groaned. "I get that he's upset and all, but I _want to go home._ There has to be _something_ we can do to convince him to just come with us for a little while. We only have one more temple to go through."

"Actually, I have a plan of my own on my mind." It was hard to see it with her being a shadow in the dark of night, but she wore her signature mischievous grin.

"And just what would that be?" I asked, knowing already that I wouldn't like it.

"We go by ourselves!" Midna said, enthusiastically throwing her hands out in the air beside her.

If we were in an old TV show, the crickets would have started chirping right about then. "...Funny."

Midna huffed and crossed her arms. "I'm not joking, you idiot. Think about it. Who knows how long Link will be mopey for? I couldn't even get him to leave the kids for a week, and that was before one of them died, so imagine how long he'll want to be with them now. If we go by ourselves, you might even be able to be back home by tomorrow night, if you're really quick finishing up Lakebed Temple."

I was tempted to say yes, right up until she said _Lakebed Temple_ and reminded me that getting the Fused Shadows wasn't as easy as just showing up someplace and grabbing it. No, there'd be puzzles to solve and monsters to fight, ending with a giant monster to fight, and in the case of Lakebed Temple, I already knew from Zi that the boss was Morpheel. _Eel_. A giant eel, in Lakebed. I was _not_ fighting a giant eel at the bottom of a lake.

But I didn't want to stay, either. I just wanted to go home and take a steaming shower and then curl up in my comfortable bed with my dog in my arms and go to sleep, and hopefully forget that I had ever even left it the morning of September 1st.

"Midna. You were there in the mines when I fell into the water..." I trailed off, hoping I wouldn't have to actually admit what I was thinking.

"I know you can't swim." Despite the fact that she was right, I immediately felt defensive because she said it. "But Queen Rutela told Link that she'd give him something so he could swim and breathe in deep water like a Zora if he'd save Ralis for her. Link's not going to need it while he's in Ordon. I'm sure he won't mind you borrowing it."

I was wary to believe that there was anything, even something in a world of magic, that would allow me to swim and breathe underwater. "I'll have to see what it is first before I'll consider putting my life on the line. If I don't believe it'll do what you say, then we're waiting for Link."

"Come on, Vanna. You don't need him. You're brave enough to go on your own, aren't you?"

I grimaced. The answer was _no_ and I knew it. However, I wasn't going to admit that, either, so I deflected the question. "You seem very happy about getting to spend time alone with me even though you hate me."

"True," she said with a tilt of her head. "But you should be glad I am, because there's only _one_ something, not two. It's either you or Link, and if it's not you, guess what you're not getting back?"

My hands curled up into fists at my sides. I wanted to dropkick that little bitch to the moon. It was bad enough that I was being forced to do everything with Link for her when _she_ was the one that owed _me_ , but having to do everything without any help at all was going too far. I was so angered by her that all I could do was stand there and glare at her, unable to articulate my whirlwind of frustrated thoughts into anything vaguely coherent.

" _I_ think it's fair," she went on. "Link's had to clear the twilight multiple times now while you did nothing to help him."

"That was because I _couldn't!_ " I lashed out, raking my hands through the roots of my hair.

"Yeah, and now one of you can't clear Lakebed Temple, so it's your turn to even the workload out. Besides... You can see yourself how devastated Link is. He'd really appreciate any help he can get, you know. But hey, it's your choice. If you want to be stuck in Hyrule forever..." Midna crossed her legs and put her arms behind her head in a relaxed pose, still giving me that god damned grin that I wanted to smack off her face.

I knew that Mr. Rider was still working on making the new NEVAs so Zi could come get me. If I didn't clear Lakebed Temple alone, I could just wait for him to finish them, but there were two problems with that. One, I had no idea how long it would take for him to finish, and two, I didn't know if it would even work. The only reason I managed to get to Hyrule in the first place was that my NEVA malfunctioned. What was to say that that malfunction could be replicated in the new copies?

I had two choices, and neither were foolproof. I could wait for Mr. Rider, with the good outcome being that I could eventually return home and the bad outcome being that I would be stuck in Hyrule forever, or I could go to Lakebed Temple alone, with the good outcome being that I could get home by tomorrow and the bad outcome being that I would die. When I looked at the pros and cons like that, it seemed simple, but it really wasn't. If I decided to wait for Mr. Rider and got stuck in Hyrule, I would never be able to forgive myself for not taking Midna up on her offer. I couldn't just miss what could easily be my only chance to leave because I was scared.

"I hate you," I said under my breath.

"Is that a yes?" Midna asked in a singsong voice.

" _Yes,_ it's a yes!" I turned around and stomped back to the Elde Inn.

I was halfway up the porch's ramp when the doors opened, and out came Link, Ilia, and the woman. I tried my hardest to not show my anger on my face, but it was noticed anyways.

"Are you all right, honey?" the woman asked.

I nodded, and quickly came up with a lie. "Just got a letter from the postman. I'd rather not talk about it."

My lie seemed good enough for her. "It was getting quite stuffy inside. We thought it best to come join you for some fresh air."

We all relaxed along the porch, and again silence reigned. It was nearly an hour later that Renado joined us outside. Link, Ilia, and I stood from where we had taken seats.

"How is he?" Ilia eagerly asked.

"He has passed through the worst of it. As long as he rests, he should recover in due time," Renado answered.

Ilia grinned widely and looked at Link. He smiled back, but I could see the sadness in his eyes as he looked at her.

"Do you know the fate of his mother?" Renado asked. The question visibly sent a shock through Link, and his smile fell. "Her welfare consumes him. Since he started to regain consciousness, he has been mumbling deliriously about her almost constantly."

I watched Link to see if he would respond. It was upsetting to me knowing that this young boy's mother had been murdered, but Link looked absolutely _heartbroken_ by it.

"...I can see the knowledge grieves you," Renado said. "It must be an awful memory."

Though I hadn't been there with Link, Renado's statement almost made me roll my eyes. It wasn't like Link watched her get murdered. Seeing a ghost wasn't _that_ awful.

I frowned when I thought of reasons why Link looked to take it so hard. Maybe he was upset because she was another person he couldn't save, and he felt guilty. Maybe he was upset because it reopened his own wounds, reminding him of how he felt when he lost his mother.

Or maybe Link was just a bigger softie than I imagined and my assumption of anything else was because I didn't understand how someone could possibly be so empathetic.

Renado turned to Ilia. "Regaining your memory will not be simple, but I am certain that if we just give you some time, you will find your heart again."

"There's nothing you can do to speed up the process?" Ilia asked.

"I'd like to study my books, and see if I could find ways to speed up the process. Until I find something, all we can do is show you pieces of your past, and hope that eventually a piece will be the one to bring your memories back. If you would not mind, I would like you to stay here to recover."

"I don't mind," Ilia said, beginning to yawn in the middle of her sentence. "Is there a bed I can sleep in, here?"

"Go to the room upstairs, and choose any bed you would like. I have my daughter awake up there right now looking over the Zora boy; feel free to talk to her if you need anything. If you need me, I will be in the sanctuary at the end of the town, by the spring."

Ilia walked inside, and Renado walked away. The woman sighed and smiled, resting back against the railing.

"Nice to see there's still hope here. And it's always good to see happy results repay your efforts. Link... Any chance you're of the mind to put those skills of yours to use for Hyrule?" she said. Link raised an eyebrow at her. "What hope there is in our kingdom is frail and dying ... but there's still a group trying to do what it can. And I'm a member of that group."

She walked to stand in front of him, leaning forward a bit and outstretching her hand. "Call me Telma."

Link looked down, his eyes lingering for just a bit too long, and it took everything I had in me not to snort—not that I could blame him. He shook her hand, and when he let go, Telma looked at me. She reached out to me, then, and I gave her a handshake.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Vanna."

"And you two are friends?"

I looked over at Link for a second. I wasn't too sure we could be called friends, considering how little we knew about each other, but I told Telma that we were friends anyways, and Link didn't object.

"I meant to ask you something earlier, Telma," Link said. "Could I borrow your wagon in the morning? I could have it back the day after tomorrow..."

Telma rested her arms on the railing again. "Sure. I was planning on staying here just a bit longer, anyways. I'm still worried about Ilia, and... Well, never mind about the rest."

She looked down the village, and Link and I followed her eyes to see what she was looking at. Renado still hadn't reached the sanctuary, and she was staring at him with a sultry smile.

I had already looked back by the time she approached Link again, but Link was surprised to turn back around and see her standing there in front of him leaning over with her hands on her hips. "I want to see you at my bar again, you hear me?" She stood up straight after Link nodded. "The bar is actually a kind of safe house for my friends. There's a passageway that leads to the castle from in there, as well."

Telma started to walk away towards Renado, nearly skipping as she did, before stopping and turning around to say something more. "If you ever need anything, stop by. I'll be waiting for you, honey!"

She winked at Link, then started on her way again. I couldn't help but laugh a little as I saw Link's dropped jaw and blushing cheeks.

* * *

 **[Edit: I previously asked how people would feel about me adding towns that aren't present in Twilight Princess - I've decided to go through with it (tbh there's like a 99% chance I would have regardless, I was just curious lol) but I'm leaving up my explanation for why I wanted it just so new readers won't be in the dark later on when it pops up :p]**

 **It always bothered me that there were only three towns in TP that humans dwelt in (two of which only having like 15 residents total together) and I really enjoyed the new towns in Breath of the Wild. I'm mainly interested in adding in Gerudo Town, since the Gerudo's absence in TP is something else that bothered me. I've also considered making my own little town in Snowpeak since Ashei mentioned growing up there, and I think it's kinda weird that there's this giant swath of Hyrule's land occupied solely by two Yetis. I don't know, I might leave the world as sparsely populated as it is, it's just something I've been thinking about for awhile.**


	16. To Lake Hylia

"So," I said to Link once Telma and Renado had made it inside the sanctuary, "Midna told me about Queen Rutela giving you some sort of gift if you saved Ralis. Do you need to go back up to Zora's Domain to get it?"

Link only got the word "I" out before his eyes trailed behind me and his sentence was cut short. I looked over my shoulder to see what he was looking at. I had never seen her before, but I knew the apparition floating behind me in the road had to be exactly who I had just been talking about, Queen Rutela. Like her son, she wore nothing but golden jewelry, but the way her pink-white fins cascaded around her hips and down her legs made it seem almost like she was wearing a long skirt at first glance. Her hair, if it could be called that, reminded me of jellyfish tendrils. Both her hair and fins and swayed in the breeze as she began to slowly float down the road.

Link followed her, and after considering it for a moment, I trailed along behind him. I assumed she had to be leading us down to the spring, since the only other place to go that I knew of was out to the field, but instead she went behind the sanctuary. I had noticed there was room to walk around it, but I didn't think that there was actually anything back there, so I was confused at first why she went that way. It turned out there was a pathway hidden back there, and following it led us to a small enclosed graveyard.

At the back of the graveyard was stone featuring a mark shaped like one of the jewels Rutela and Ralis wore. Rutela's form passed right through it, and after she did, it glowed a bright turquoise before fading away to reveal a small hole behind it. As Link crawled through, I changed my mind about following him. If Rutela was taking him so far out of the way, she probably wanted to talk to him alone. Still, though, I was nosy, so I got down on the ground and peeked in through the hole. I could see Link standing in a smaller enclosure, and I could just barely see the bottom of Rutela's fins floating in front of him.

They were still close enough that I could hear Rutela's words. She thanked him for bringing Ralis to Kakariko Village and told him that the Zora people were buried in the graveyard, including her husband. Her husband made garments for ' _the Chosen Hero_ ' that housed the abilities of the Zora, and she urged Link to take them. She asked Link to tell Ralis to not grieve her, to be brave and live on as the Zora King. Her voice got quieter as she instructed Link to tell Ralis that she loved him, and then it disappeared entirely and her body vanished.

With her gone, I crawled in through the narrow tunnel. I was stunned by how beautiful the alcove was. Clear water separated the ground I was on from where a soaking Link was standing. A large stone was on the slice of land with Link, and on either side of the ground, there were waterfalls that almost looked to glow as they flowed down past the vines and branches growing over the earthen walls. I wished I could have come back to the scenic hideaway during my time in the village that I had nothing else to do—until I realized the stone Link was standing in front of was probably the gravestone of a Zora, judging by its fin-like design and placement at the back of a graveyard.

Link turned around, holding the folded set of clothes in his hands. He placed the outfit in his pouch before jumping into the water and swimming over to join me. Midna came up out of my shadow.

"Do you think you're going to use those clothes while you're down in Ordon?" she asked.

Link's face looked blank as he replied in monotone, "I'm going for a funeral, not a swim."

"So, can Vanna borrow them for a while?"

Link looked at me, and I looked at Midna. I didn't think she was going to ask him for me.

"I'm staying here with Vanna while you go down to Ordon," Midna explained. "Vanna needs to learn how to swim before the three of us go to Lakebed Temple, and I thought it'd be fun for me and Vanna to have some girl time together. Isn't that right, Vanna?" She smiled at me.

I had to fight back to make my face not contort in disgust, and it was just as hard to hide the disgust in my voice. "Yeah..."

"Okay," Link said slowly, an eyebrow raised. He took the outfit from his pouch and handed it over to me. "You two have fun, then... I'm goin' to bed."

Link crawled through the tunnel, and after a few moments I crouched down and looked through just to make sure he was gone. Once I saw him exit the cemetery, I stood back up and faced Midna.

"Why were you trying to keep it a secret that we're going to Lakebed Temple together without him?" I asked.

"When we were in Castle Town, they tried putting the wagon on Epona, but she hated it, so Link's going to have to take Telma's horse and leave Epona behind. I don't think Link would like it very much if he knew that you're going to ride his horse to Lake Hylia without him when you know nothing about horses."

I stared at her in disbelief. "You didn't want him to know because you want me to _steal his horse?_ " I whispered, just in case.

Her one visible eye rolled. "I believe the word you're looking for is _borrow_."

"You just said yourself I don't know anything about horses! How do you expect me to know how to control her?"

"You're going to have to figure that out yourself, aren't you?" she said, crossing her arms. She interrupted me after just one word. "You _need_ Epona, unless you want to go all the way across Hyrule Field entirely on foot. That would take forever, and you know that you don't want to wait longer than necessary to get that last Fused Shadow."

I tried to think of something else, but all that came to mind at first was just how much I wanted to punch myself for not taking my TPort with me. The thought of teleporting then reminded me of something else. "Can't you just warp us to Lakebed Temple with a portal?"

"No. You can't warp through the portals. You'll get stuck in the twilight."

My eyes narrowed; she had to be lying to me. "You warped me out of the temples through portals when we finished them."

"Those were just quick short distance portals that didn't actually have to bring you through the twilight and out through a different portal. Trust me, I _wish_ we could just warp to Lake Hylia. Even with Epona it's still going to take hours to get there."

Again, my face contorted. I'd have to ride a horse for hours when I knew nothing about horses, to a place I didn't know the location of, with Midna pestering me all the way there, and then after that I'd have to go into an underwater temple with no help to speak of. I groaned and threw my head back. "Just kill me."

* * *

When I woke up in the morning, I headed over to the Elde Inn. Ilia, Telma, Renado, and Luda were eating breakfast together in the lobby, and they offered for me to join them. I told them I would in just a moment, and I went upstairs.

While laying in bed at night trying to get to sleep, imagining how going to Lakebed Temple would be, I had realized that I only had my sword and gun. Link had the bow and arrows, the metal shield I had gotten, my lantern, the magic wind boomerang, and the iron boots. I didn't think the boomerang or the boots would be of too much use to me, considering I didn't have the magic necessary to control the boomerang how Link did, and I apparently didn't need the boots to stick to magnets anyways, but I knew I would feel safer having them just in case. I wanted to be as prepared as possible for the temple, and Link probably wouldn't need any of those things if he was just going to Ordon. He could survive for a while with just his sword and wooden shield. At least, that's what I told myself as I sneaked up to him while he slept and I plucked what I wanted from his pouch.

Over the course of the next hour or so, the Ordonian children trickled downstairs one by one, and Link was the last person to join all of us. After Link finished eating, he went over with Renado and Telma to have a discussion about the best way to transport everyone down to Ordon, which I listened to. They figured it likely that nobody would be thrilled about sitting in a wagon for five hours with Colin's rotting corpse, which led to the resolution that Link would take one trip to drop off the four living Ordonians, then come back to get Colin and bring him down. Renado was concerned about the lengthiness of the multiple trips, but Link insisted he would be okay. I, on the other hand, was also somewhat worried about it, because if Link was coming back so soon for his second trip, that meant he would notice without a doubt that I had taken Epona. I supposed though that it wouldn't matter, really, because it would be too late by the time he found out for him to do anything about it.

Telma said Link could stay down there with her wagon for a few days if he wanted, and Renado reminded Link to bring Ilia with him upon returning. With the plan finalized, everyone went outside. As the kids and Ilia were saying their goodbyes to everyone not going with them, it hit me that this would be my last time seeing Link. I got him to come over to the side with me.

"I don't really know how to say this, but I guess I just wanted to thank you for ... well, everything, I guess," I said. "Being so nice to me even when I broke into your house, and letting me stay there while you were gone, and saving me from that giant rock up on the mountain, and just saving me in general from all of the crazy stuff in this world."

"Like that _crazy_ water in the Goron Mines that tried to kill you," Midna piped up from in my shadow.

Link chuckled at her comment, and though I was slightly embarrassed by it at first, I ended up chuckling, too, after seeing Link's smile. "Really, though," I said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Link said. His smile faded away. "But why are you thanking me right now? You're makin' it sound like you're gonna leave..."

I knew it probably seemed like a suspicious time to thank him. My hopes that he wouldn't catch on had been broken. Rather than telling him about Midna's plans, I had to come up with something else. "Well... Mr. Rider is working on new NEVAs so Zi can come get me, so I could be going home at any time," I said. It was technically true, but I doubted that they would be done before Midna and I were done at Lakebed Temple.

"Oh, really? You never told me about either of those people, aside from bringing up that Zi person once. I had no idea..."

I was somewhat shocked at first to have it brought to my attention that I had never told Link about them, but then I figured it made sense considering how much of our time together was spent focusing on temples. "Zi is Mr. Rider's son and my best friend, and Mr. Rider is the man who invented NEVA and gave it to me for me to test out. I've been communicating with them since I got here using my ... _music-listening picture-taking thing_ , or _phone_ as it's really called. Last I checked, the new NEVAs were about half done."

"So this could be my last time seeing you," Link said. I nodded, and he briefly looked over his shoulder to the wagon that the Ordonians were starting to get situated inside of. "If it is, then I guess I oughta thank you, too. It was real nice not having to go through the Forest Temple and all up the mountains and into the Goron Mines by myself. I probably would have died in the mines if you hadn't been there to get me out, so ... thanks for saving me, too."

"Come on, Link!" Beth called.

We looked at the wagon again, and when Link looked back at me, without even thinking about it, I put a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. What I was doing dawned on me the second my lips touched him. I quickly pulled away. His cheeks and ears were turning pink, and his eyebrows were raised in surprise. My own cheeks started to blush.

Again, my mind raced to come up with a lie. "I-it's customary, in America, to—to kiss people on the cheek, after they thank you," I said. I started playing with my fingers nervously. "Guess you've never heard of people doing that...?"

"We don't do that down in Ordon... Maybe people in other places in Hyrule do?" Link said, his hand reaching up to rub the nape of his neck. "But, uh, I gotta go, now..."

"One last thing. Colin," I said. "You know how much he loved you, and everyone else. You need to tell them. Especially his parents."

Link frowned again, and he dropped his hand and nodded. "I will. Goodbye, Vanna."

"Goodbye, Link."

He walked over to the wagon, and after making sure everyone was all ready to go, he got on Telma's horse and took off. Watching them leave felt almost bittersweet, but more than anything I felt self-loathing. It was bad enough that I had to go and make my last moment together with Link awkward, but that lie was just about the _dumbest_ thing I had ever come up with. Why hadn't I had just said it was customary to kiss people on the cheek when saying _goodbye?_ Again, I supposed it was something that ultimately didn't matter—an awkward kiss on the cheek wouldn't make things more awkward between us in the future, because we had no future together at all, but I still couldn't stop beating myself up over it.

Then, of course, Midna had to come up out of my shadow after everyone was gone and make fun of me for it. "Aww!" she giggled. "Wasn't that just so _sweet_ of you to give him a little kiss?"

" _Shut up_ ," I grumbled under my breath, rolling my eyes. "I think we should wait awhile before leaving so Link can't look back and see me on Epona in the field."

"Why don't you take some time to practice riding her back and forth in the village before we leave, then?" Midna suggested.

With a nod, I walked over to Epona, and Midna floated along behind me. It was as I got right next to the horse that I remembered how much of an ordeal it had been trying to get up on her even while Link was on her and holding my hand for support. It was so much easier when he had lifted me up onto her. I held onto the saddle instead while I tried to get on, but I couldn't get my right leg over. She was just too tall.

"This is hilarious, but also kind of sad," Midna commented from behind me.

I huffed and glared back at her. "I'm sorry we can't all just levitate around wherever we want," I said before turning my attention back to trying to mount Epona.

"You could just walk onto the porch she's standing next to and get on from there."

That was definitely a better idea. I silently walked onto the porch and climbed up onto the fence, and from there it was easy enough to hike my dress up and stretch my leg over Epona's back. She whipped her head back and neighed loudly when I settled onto her. I shushed her, though it did nothing to stop her. She was making it seem like I was trying to murder her when all I was doing was sitting on her.

"I've ridden on you before! Stop freaking out!" I said.

I tried petting her neck in an attempt to calm her down, but it only seemed to make her more aggravated, so I stopped and sat on her completely still and silent. She slowly got over her tantrum by herself.

"Okay," I said gently, petting her again, "we're going to go, okay, girl?"

"Whenever you decide to leave, go through the southern exit, and then take a straight shot west across the field. I'll help you find the lake once we get close," Midna said before retreating into my shadow.

"All right." I nodded and grabbed the reigns, and I softly kicked Epona's flanks with both of my heels. "Go."

She didn't go, so I did it again, but not quite as soft with the kick. She still didn't go, but I was scared to kick her any harder, even though I knew horses were tough. I thought back to what Link had done to make her start going. He had kicked her just like I did the last time I saw him make her go, but the time we rode her together he made a noise at the same time. I kicked Epona again as I mimicked the noise Link had made, and then Epona took off at a snail's pace. Though I appreciated her going slow as I learned how to ride her, I felt like she was only doing it to taunt me, and I worried that she was going to continue going just as slow when it was time to leave. At the rate she was walking at, I could get to the lake faster on my own two feet.

It was hard getting her to turn around at the ends of the village at first, but she started to respond better with every lap we took. She started to run when I kicked her again, and I made her go a few more laps at her higher speed before leaving out into the field. Upon realizing that the wagon was still within sight, albeit far away and headed in a different direction, I kicked Epona again to make her go even faster. If Link noticed us, there was no way he was catching up with us.

With every stride Epona took, my body bounced up and down on the saddle, and I smiled widely as I took in the sight of the vast field. Walking around in Ordon and Kakariko by myself was like nothing compared to how freeing it was to ride Epona across the plains. It was scary, sure—exceptionally so when I noticed some monsters roaming about in the distance—but a little bit of fright was worth it to have the most liberating experience of my life. I giggled as I thought about how infuriated my mom would be to know that I was riding a horse by myself in a field with monsters.

"What's funny?" Midna asked, not bothering to show herself.

"Nothing, really. It's just... My mom would _kill_ me if she knew what I was doing right now."

She hummed, but didn't respond further than that, which I was grateful for. Talkative as I was, I wasn't in the mood to hold a conversation with her when I was going to be stuck with her for hours and hours, and I enjoyed having Epona's hooves racing along the ground and the wind blowing against me being the only sounds I heard. After Epona barreled right through the first monster on the field without a problem, I started to relax more. I just had to try my hardest to focus on not thinking about what was waiting for me at the bottom of a lake.

* * *

"I am _not_ fucking jumping off this bridge!"

Hours later, and after much trouble getting Epona to stop running, we were finally at the lake. Not right before the water, though, no—we were on a bridge high above the lake, and the only way to get into the water was to jump off.

"Oh, stop being such a baby," Midna said. "The outfit Link gave you will make it easy for you to swim and impossible for you to drown. You'll be fine."

"I won't get the chance to drown if I die as soon as I hit the water! That lake is like two hundred feet down! There's no way I can survive that!"

"Link jumped down into the lake off this bridge, and he survived. And the lake was basically a puddle when he jumped down into it. You. Will. Be. _Fine_. Just put on the armor and make a leap. Close your eyes if you have to." Midna went back down into my shadow, her way of saying that the conversation about jumping was over.

Part of me thought that she was lying so that I'd jump down and break my neck, and then she wouldn't have to deal with me any longer. I made a noise somewhere between a groan and a whine as I got into my pouch and retrieved the outfit. I sat it on top of the thick safety wall of the bridge, and reached down to grab the hem of my dress.

"...Do you _have_ to stay in my shadow while I get changed?" I said.

"What's wrong with me being in your shadow while you get changed?" Midna asked.

"Hmm, maybe I _don't_ want you down there looking up at me while I'm getting dressed?"

"I don't know if you realize this or not, but it's really dark in your shadow. So dark I can't see, in fact."

In hindsight, I probably should have realized that myself. "Oh..."

"And I wouldn't want to look at your naked pale ass anyways."

I shot her a glare that she couldn't see, then looked down the bridge both ways. Monsters aside, I hadn't seen a single soul on the way out there, but I wanted to make sure nobody was nearby anyways as I quickly stripped out of my clothes. I struggled trying to figure out which part of the Zora outfit was supposed to go where. Once I figured it out, most of it looked big on me. I couldn't even end up wearing the calf, arm, or thigh pieces because they just wouldn't stay on. The only parts that fit me okay were the wetsuit (which I assumed had to be because of some magic spell, because it formed to my body perfectly), hip pieces, the helmet, and the hood with a dangling tail. The hood was the same material as the wetsuit, forming to the contours of my face like magic. I could breathe just fine despite the fabric covering my nose and mouth, so I assumed—hoped—that it and the wetsuit were really the only things needed to grant me the abilities Queen Rutela boasted.

I climbed up on the wall, adjusting the flippers on my feet again after I got up. Looking down at the water, I felt like I may as well have been holding a knife against my throat to slash it. Multiple times I told myself that I would jump on three, but chickened out when I got to it.

"You're lucky I'm just a shadow and I can't push you off..." Midna said.

I ignored her. If I was going to risk my life, I was going to do it at my own pace. The longer I stood there staring, though, the more I worked myself up. I told myself repeatedly that I had to do it eventually; I was just delaying the inevitable.

I took in a deep breath and jumped.

* * *

 **This was supposed to be the chapter to finally include the first scene I wrote for this story, but it's not. Woopsies.**

 **Jack54311** : Yeah, I've thought about them being exiled, but also I was thinking that Gerudo Town could be nice to have with a plot point that's going to come up, and it would be easiest to add in since there's a very obvious place on TP's map where it could go compared to other villages like Hateno and Lurelin. Also I just love the Gerudo lol. And yeah she's reaaally gonna hate the water temple. But hey, they say there's no better way to get over your fears than to face them, or in Vanna's case, be surrounded entirely by nothing but her fear.

 **KarinMaaka07** : I'm definitely planning on throwing in some Easter Eggs and references to the other games! It's funny that you brought up a salesman trying to sell an old hero's things because that's actually something I've considered, haha. It's just a matter of deciding what though, because most of the items featured in the games chronologically before TP are also included in TP, like the clawshots, slingshot, and boomerang, so I'm not sure what else there could be that would be helpful.

 **Awesomeness3013** : Thanks for your input!

 **Mystirica18** : That would be cute! But the problem I have is that I think any owners of horses would want her to actually buy it (because who would really just give a horse away to a stranger?), and she has a total of 0 Rupees.

 **JU** : Yeah, how _would_ Vanna possibly accompany Link with only one set of the Zora armor? :) Haha, I actually love the water temples, and any water levels in games in general, so I'm still sort of surprised every time I get on the internet and am reminded of how much everyone else seems to loathe them. And no, you definitely don't sound like you're pushing me to make Midna and Vanna's relationship evolve! I want their relationship to grow, too. I'm sure the bickering would get annoying somewhere down the line if I didn't, lol.

 **Guest** : I'm really surprised it took so long for me to get a guest like you! I get the feeling you won't be coming back to see if I respond, but I'm going to in case you do. You could have just written ' _I didn't read more than the summary_ ' and saved both of us some time. Vanna's not ' _totally inexperienced and unqualified._ ' Testing is her actual job. Congrats on finding a way to squeeze the good ole ' _Mary Sue_ ' in your review, too. Because it totally still has value as a term after being flung around constantly by people who don't know what it's supposed to mean.

And yup, it is LinkxOC. I wanted to have a whack at it myself without doing any of the things that bug me in other LinkxOC fics (such as not making them immediately fall head-over-heels in love, or not pretending that Link and Ilia had no feelings for each other at all). If you had bothered to read instead of jumping to the worst conclusions you could based off a 62-word summary, I think you would have found that I'm attempting to ' _fix_ ' the things you don't like in other stories like this. Really, I actually don't like the summary myself so I can't blame you that much for not liking it either, but it was the best I could think of without just outright spoiling things.


	17. Submerged

**Not dead! Sorry again for being the worst updater ever. Anyways. I've said over the last few chapters that there are events coming up that I wrote before I wrote anything else for this story, and those scenes are coming up in the next chapter and the chapter after that (I've got about 2000 words of chapter 18 and 1300 of 19) so I'm pretty set for them. I also chopped off a bit of the end of this chapter because it was getting longer than I'm comfortable with and I thought it'd be better to end it somewhere else, so that's more of 18 already done.**

 **Also, I revised the first chapter. It's got about 800 more words than it used to. It's mostly just some added exposition that's already been covered by the time you get to this chapter, that I felt should have been included there looking back. I made little edits to every other chapter as well, with the exception of chapters 12, 14, and 16, but they were such minor edits I doubt anyone would be able to even notice I changed anything at all.**

* * *

Back in America, the most ' _dangerous_ ' thing I ever did, and ever enjoyed doing, was getting on roller coasters. With the advancement of technology, roller coaster accidents had become more and more scarce to the point that they were almost unheard of in the present day, so I saw no reason to be scared of them. Still, others would scream for the entire duration of the rides, and I found it peculiar that they did. One time when we were at an amusement park together, I asked Zi why he screamed, and he told me it was the feeling of falling, because it brought with it the worry of danger that he just couldn't shake off.

I didn't understand until I was falling from the bridge, a scream ripping through my throat louder than any noise I had ever made. After an eternity of falling, I crashed into the water. I swam up as soon as I could, wondering how in the world I was still alive. My fingers hastily reached up to pull down the material that covered my mouth and nose, allowing my mouth to fall open to take in bigger breaths. My entire body trembled, partially from the fear that still lingered within me, but the real culprit was the water. It was _freezing_. I should have expected as much; I knew that the lake in Ordon and the spring in Kakariko were cool, and that it was getting colder out in the nights and mornings, and I had noticed on the ride to the lake that some leaves were starting to turn red and that the grass wasn't quite as green, yet I hadn't thought at all about how the quickly approaching fall would affect the temperature of the lake.

As if this whole scenario wasn't already bad enough. I hated swimming, I hated having to risk my life, I hated having nobody there to help me, and I absolutely hated the cold. I always swore that I felt any non-mild temperature right through to my bones, and the cold was by far the least bearable. My family and friends always told me I was being dramatic when I complained about it, but I was telling the truth. The cold gnawed right through to my core, and even with the wetsuit helping the areas it covered, I knew that I would be shivering in no time. If given the choice, I would have taken the blistering heat of the mines over the chilled water in an instant.

"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

The sound of Midna's voice reminded me that I still hadn't opened my eyes. When I blinked them open, she was hovering just above the water's surface. " _Yes_ , it was."

"Oh, really? Hm. You could have walked down to the lake from a path over there," Midna said, pointing her finger.

I looked to where she pointed. There was a narrow outcropping along the rocks that shot all the way around the lake up to the field, leading down to the patch of land that stretched the southern edge of the lake. "Why didn't you say that was there earlier instead of making me _jump off_ _a_ _bridge?!_ "

"Because I wanted to watch you jump off a bridge. Anyways, temple's down there, so get going. You should probably put those flippers back on, too."

Midna disappeared, leaving me seething in anger by myself. I was fully convinced she did want me to die, and at that point, the feeling was mutual. She had said I was the one lucky that she was just a shadow, but _she_ was really the one that was lucky, because if she wasn't a shadow then I would've drowned her in the lake. The thought of pinning her under was momentarily relieving, but then I realized that in that situation I'd only be hurting myself more. If she died, the chances I'd ever get back home were lowered drastically, maybe even entirely for all I knew. As much as I hated it, I needed her.

I just didn't need her sass. As I retrieved the flippers that had come off my feet sometime after my jump, I informed Midna that I'd be practicing my swimming for a while before going down, and that I would only leave when I was ready, not at her command. She wasn't happy about it, but for once, I think she knew I wasn't going to bend for her. I took it as a small personal victory.

If the outfit truly helped me swim just like a Zora, then the Zoras had to be the least graceful aquatic species ever. I wondered if it was because I didn't have the full outfit on, or if I was just so bad at swimming in the first place that it could only do so much, or a combination of both. Despite it not making me swim exactly how I hoped, it still helped me immensely, somehow. I almost didn't feel like myself swimming around in it. It felt especially strange when I started practicing swimming around while completely submerged, not just because of it being something I'd never really done before, but because I could still breathe as if I were on land.

I swam all over the lake for practice, trying my hardest to distract myself with the calming scenery. When I was as comfortable with swimming as I thought possible—which is to say, not very—I began to swim downwards. The deeper I went, the more I felt the water pressure increase, and the harder I found it to force myself to swim further. The idea of using the iron boots to make myself sink down popped into my head, and immediately I took my pouch off and brought it around in front of me so I could make sure nothing else slipped out into the water. I opened up its flap, and found that there seemed to be some sort of magic barrier over the top of it, not letting any water inside. After pulling just one boot out and replacing a flipper with it, I immediately began to be weighed down, and the addition of the second boot sped up my descent.

As I sunk down, the necklace that went with the armor floated up in front of my face. The pendant was glowing the same bright cyan as the waterfalls where Queen Rutela left the world. I doubted it would manage to slip off my head with the headgear I had on, but I reached up to hold it in my hand just in case. It felt like water was swirling inside the glowing gems. I tried to focus on the sensation of it rather than how rapidly I was approaching the temple.

My fears were slightly alleviated by the sight of several Zoras swimming around near what I could tell had to be the entrance to the temple. If something were to happen to me, they could probably help bring me to safety, given I could get to them in time. The sight of them also confirmed to me that I absolutely was not swimming like a Zora. Most of the Zora were swimming in place, but one was gracefully swimming all over in an underwater version of figure eights.

I came to a stop at the bottom of the lake with a muted thunk, and then I took the boots off and put the flippers back on. Two Zoras were guarding a hole that had been blocked off with rocks, which I presumed to be where I would swim inside from. I hesitated swimming up to the Zoras to talk to them about letting me in. I knew from the start that there would be water inside of the temple, but it hit me just then that it would more than likely be filled with nothing but water, and following that, it would be completely dark. I'd have to rely on either my phone's light, which would come at the cost of not getting to use one of my hands, or I'd have to rely on only what little light the pendant gave off. I looked to the surface high above me, wondering if and worrying that it would be the last time I'd ever see the light of the sun again.

Ignoring every part of my brain screaming at me to go back up, to trust in Mr. Rider's ability to get me home, I swam over to the Zoras. I had made it this far; I couldn't handle the shame of proving to Midna that I was the cowardly quitter she thought I was.

"Sir!" said one of the Zoras.

 _Sir?_ I knew the scale-covered armor didn't lend very well to my body with its lack of shape, but I thought I should have been recognizable as a _miss_ anyways. In all fairness, I couldn't tell if the Zoras I was looking at were male or female, either, so I couldn't blame them too much. Beyond a few minor differences in the markings and colorings of the Zoras, they looked very similar to one another, and very androgynous, with a mix of soft curves and defined abs. I tried to determine what they were with the image of the queen in my mind, but I had no idea if the ones I was looking at had fish pecs or fish boobs that were smaller than the queen's. Apparently that was just life in Hyrule.

"You wear the garb of the Hero in my people's legends! Are you, perhaps...?" it said.

There was an explanation for me being called sir, aside from them not knowing enough about humans to be able to easily differentiate between men and women. If the hero from their legends was a man, and I was wearing his clothes, it was a reasonable enough assumption to make, though I still held that I looked like a girl regardless. I decided to go along with it instead of explaining that I had just borrowed the hero's outfit, thinking that they would be more likely to let me inside their temple if they thought I was ' _the Hero_.' I responded a muffled, "Yeah, I'm the Hero. I'm here to save your people from the dangers in the temple."

The two Zoras looked happy to hear that I was the Hero, but their enthusiasm drained away quickly and was replaced with horror.

"The temple has been overrun by monsters. They are _everywhere_ in there," one of them said.

"We've already done all we could and sealed them in so they can't bring darkness to others. It is simply too dangerous inside. I must ask that you turn back," said the other.

That seemed like the perfect excuse to leave, yet I knew Midna wouldn't care and would want me to fight back to be let in. "Well... I'm here on orders from Prince Ralis. If you don't let me in..."

My open-ended not-really-a-threat threat worked. The two Zoras guarding the entrance quickly discussed the best way to clear the entrance of the rocks that obstructed it, and decided to ask another nearby Zora who made water bombs to let them use one to blow it open. I backed away from the entrance when they and the bomb maker came over with a bomb, and after it was placed, they backed away as well. Seconds later, the bomb detonated, clearing all the rocks from the opening.

' _Claustrophobia_ ' wasn't a word that I had ever thought applied to me, but seeing the cleared entrance made me begin to rethink how I felt about small spaces.

I looked up to the surface just one last time before starting to swim into the hole. If there was one good thing about being underwater, it was the fact that at least Midna couldn't tell that I was crying. My heartbeat was thundering louder in my ears with every stroke forward. I briefly considered asking one of the Zoras to come along with me; it would help just having one of them there next to me, even if they didn't help me fight or anything. But I was certain that Midna would not approve of me asking for someone to go with me, and judging by how adamant the Zoras had been that the temple was too dangerous to enter, they probably wouldn't want to risk going inside regardless.

I naturally expected it to get darker the further I went in from the entrance, but to my pleasant surprise, it didn't. The pendant began to glow brighter in the darkness, illuminating the tunnel with its blue-green radiance. The tunnel kept on going down, and down, and down, and down, until coming to what seemed at first like an abrupt end. Knowing that had to be wrong, I looked around, and realized that the tunnel went on upwards from there. Looking up, I saw what looked like the surface of the underwater tunnel—which was very confusing, because no part of the temple was above the water level of the lake—and two jellyfish that were probably as long as I was tall.

As I swam up towards the side of the tunnel opposite of the side where the first jellyfish was floating, it started to generate electricity. The only thing on my mind was that I needed to get away, so I started swimming up as fast as I could to get out of the bounds of its current. Because I was looking down to make sure its electricity didn't reach up to me, I didn't realize that I had already swum up to the second one until I felt myself get shocked. And as expected, given my awful luck over the past two weeks—first NEVA, now _this_ —it wasn't just like the small shock you sometimes get when touching something. It hurt worse than when NEVA electrified me, and felt like it lasted an eternity longer.

When the jellyfish finally let up, I hurried and swam the rest of the way up the tunnel. I emerged in a domed and notably not-underwater room. I climbed out of the water and sat down curled up on the floor, my body still shaking. The exposed parts of my arms and face were burning, while the rest of me was freezing from the water.

"Are you _crying?_ "

I didn't bother looking up at her. " _Fuck off_." I tried my hardest to show that I wasn't going to take any of her attitude, but it was a lot harder than normal to sound threatening when my voice was squeaky and wavering.

"Ooh, someone's moody today... Is that really the way you should be talking to the person who's helping you get back home?"

I clenched my fists, telling myself not to bite. Talking back to her was more trouble than it was worth. I just needed time to calm down, time to let it sink in that I was no longer underwater, no longer being shocked, and no longer in the tunnel. Thankfully, she didn't push it more, and she let me sit there and cry it out.

She broke the silence after several minutes, when I was starting to calm down some. "There's a monster coming for you."

At her words, I finally looked up. Just a few feet ahead of me was a purple blob, that looked like grape jelly had come to life and was inching along the floor. It was far from what I was expecting to see when warned of a monster. Even the harmless Ooccoo looked infinitely more menacing. I knew that even if it wasn't dangerous, it at least wasn't friendly, or else Midna wouldn't have called it a monster, so I got my gun out and shot at it. Instead of turning black and blowing up, the jelly blob simply split apart into two smaller blobs, and continued inching along towards me. After I shot each of them, they were reduced to little purple puddles on the floor.

"You're welcome," Midna said.

I rolled my eyes and pulled the face mask down under my chin. I looked away from her and rubbed the remaining tears out of my eyes. "Thanks. That grape jelly would've just _killed_ me if it weren't for you."

"They actually cling to your face and suffocate you, so yes, it would have. _You're welcome_."

I was embarrassed by being wrong, but it was easy enough to justify to myself why I had no reason to think the blobs would be able to hurt me. They really did look like moving grape jelly.

Despite how much time I spent both the night before and on the way to Lakebed that day obsessively worrying about how everything would go, I had somehow managed to not think about something that seemed so very obvious at that moment. My stomach growled, and I had no food.

Water, at least, I had plenty of. I had two filled canteens and a glass bottle of water in my pouch, and if I ran out of that, there was always the water in the temple, even if I wasn't too thrilled about drinking potentially contaminated water. Besides, I knew I could just get some antibiotics when I got home if the water really was contaminated. There was no solution to my lack of food other than to leave and find some. While I wasn't happy having to go back through the tunnel, I figured that I wouldn't have to go very far beyond it to get some food, considering that there was a floating house on the lake.

I wasn't sure how to broach the subject with Midna, so I started out just by saying, "I'm hungry."

"And?"

"And I want to eat."

"Then eat."

"I don't have any food."

"Not my problem. And you're not going to starve to death over the next few hours."

Of course she didn't seem to care. I didn't think she ate or drank, unless my shadow was secretly hiding a shadow restaurant. "I know I won't starve to death. I'm worried about not being able to concentrate on what I'm doing because of being hungry."

"Then try harder to concentrate. You can't go back now. Hurry up and get through the temple, and then you can go home and eat." In a clear display of her desire to end the conversation there, she retreated into my shadow.

Groaning, I pressed my palms into my eyes. I was _so close_ to going home. Just a few more hours. I could handle it.

I slowly got to my feet and took the time to look around the room I was in. Up a short set of staircases, two sconces were lit on either side of a gate, but the fires didn't light the room much. The pendant was providing most of what light there was, casting the room in cyan everywhere besides the small areas covered by the warm light of the fires. Before moving, I put my flippers into my pouch and poured out the water that filled my boots. I walked up one of the staircases, eying a golden pulley hanging between them as I did. At the top, I reached over to grab it, and yanked it down.

The gate opened as a result, clearing the way to a door that I then walked up to. I could tell it was like the modern doors from my world, going up into the wall, but it was different enough to leave me confused. There was no scanner to activate or button to press on the wall. I thought that maybe it had something to do with the flames on the wall, like how a bridge was raised in the Forest Temple because of four torches being lit. I turned around and walked back down the stairs, and searched for hidden torches or sconces behind the columns around the room, but I found nothing. I started to return to the door, my eyes scanning the floor for any switch to step on. I was starting to get disgruntled by the time I made it back without a single clue how to open it. There were no switches, no buttons, no torches to light, and the pulley was down as far as it would go. Why couldn't they have just gone old-fashioned and put handles on the thing?

Midna popped up out of my shadow to my side. "Why are you procrastinating in here? Just push the door up and go in, already."

I put both of my hands against the door, and with a shove upwards, the door started to open from the bottom. Once again, I found myself embarrassed by Midna's words, but I was thankful that she seemed to think that I was just procrastinating and not actually stumped by a door that had to be opened manually instead of with the press of a button.

The door led to a long bridge high above flowing water, and there was another door—one with good old-fashioned handles—at the end of it. The light of the pendant didn't extend nearly far enough to cover all of the ring-shaped room, but I could just barely make out more bridges to the left and right, all connected to the same place that I was headed into. There was just one challenge before I could get inside to what I assumed was the main room, in the form of a monster I hadn't yet seen.

The monster started racing towards me, dagger and shield at the ready, and I rushed to retrieve my gun from my pouch. It raised its shield in the nick of time, the laser reflecting right off of it. I didn't think it wise to try again what had already failed once, which narrowed my options down to the bow and arrows, and my sword and shield. I knew I would have been more comfortable with the former, but the monster had already proven it had no problem defending itself from projectiles, and the bow and quiver were still stashed away in my pouch while the monster was quickly approaching.

I dropped my gun, and pulled my sword out of its scabbard and held my shield in front of me. I tried to think back to everything the Hero's Shade had taught me, but in the heat of the moment, I more or less ended up slashing my sword around nonsensically while cowering behind my shield as much as I could. In my frenzy, I managed to slice the left arm of the monster, that I now noticed was essentially a bipedal, human-sized lizard. It threw its arm back with a screech, leaving an opening for me to stab my sword right through its chest. It kept screeching in pain and it thrashed its body around my sword, more blood squirting out the more it did. I thought it would have turned black and exploded into nothing at any moment, but it just wouldn't die. I attempted to pull my sword out to drive it back in again, only for me to find that it was stuck.

Holding my shield up above me to protect from the thoughtless onslaught of slashes from the monster's dagger, I crouched down to grab my gun off the floor. Without standing, I held it beside my shield and shot up at the monster underneath its shield. The laser was enough to finish it off. It fell on its back and puffed away, leaving my sword on the ground. I picked it up and looked over the completely blood-coated blade. I was slightly disgusted by it, but more than anything, I felt proud of myself. That monster was the first one I'd killed with my sword, and it didn't even get me once. All the blood on my sword, my body, and the ground was the monster's. My life-long record of never having seen my own blood continued on.

After putting away my weapons, I went on through the double doors at the end of the bridge. Though it was technically the third temple I'd been inside, Lakebed was the first that actually looked like a temple to me. A massive chandelier supplied ample light to the circular two-level room. The only way I could go to start was down the stairs, because of fences blocking my access to the rest of the upper room, but I didn't go down right away. I saw a wriggling pot on the other side of one of the fences. I walked over to it, having a solid clue in my mind as to what, or who, it was, even though it made no sense. Ooccoo poked her head out and looked at me, and like instinct I drew back in revulsion, but I kept walking to the fence after the shock of how creepy she continued to be wore off.

"Oh, my, you must help me get out!" she pleaded.

I looked up; the fence was tall, and while it had holes cut into it rather than bars, I knew I wouldn't be able to climb up over it because of the rocks at the top. "I'll have to find a way around so I can get you out, okay?"

"Oh, all right... I suppose I can't do anything but wait after all..."

I couldn't keep myself from asking the questions I desperately wanted to ask. "How did you even _get_ down here? And why do you keep on getting in pots when you know you get stuck every time?"

Ooccoo blinked, and disappeared into the pot.

* * *

 **I guess not that much really happened this chapter, but I wanted to wrap it up here because it was getting harder to find a place to stop when she was really getting into the bulk of the temple. Lots of fun in the next chapter though! Well, I think so. It might be a longy.**

 **Awesomeness3013 & Savage Kill:** Thank you for reviewing!

 **Jack54311:** I know she comments on stuff that happened while she was in shadow, but I just interpreted it as her going off of audio cues alone and then commenting on stuff that was visible after she popped up because otherwise it kind of feels like there's no reason for her to show herself at all to me. I have thought about the ocarina of time and the happy mask salesman being included, but I also thought that people might think it would be going too far with borrowing from other games, because it is supposed to be Twilight Princess after all. I guess it doesn't really matter because the games themselves do lots of borrowing of characters/items/everything in general, also ~ _my story I_ _can_ _do what I want_ ~ and all, but still.


	18. Secrets Inside

After going down the stairs, I went to the only door that wasn't blocked off with fences. It opened up to another long bridge, perhaps one of the same bridges that I had seen when I first came in, with an unmoving waterwheel in the middle of it. A blue Tektite hopped towards me, and I managed to off it with four quick slices. Once the Tektite was dead, I walked up to the waterwheel to examine it and figure out what I had to do. I pushed and pulled it with all of my might, but it wouldn't budge. I wondered if I needed to get water to move it for me. There was another bridge overhead, so I knew that getting water to dump down from above onto the waterwheel wasn't an option.

The water would have to come along the bridge itself. The doors at both ends had holes at the bottom that would easily allow water to gush through them, and the sides of the bridge were raised enough that water wouldn't spill over. I wasn't sure just how in the world I was supposed to channel a stream of water towards the wheel, but I hoped that the answer would make itself obvious when I got to it. With seemingly nothing more to do on the bridge, I went back the way I came.

I spent an embarrassingly long time walking around the central room, going back up and back down the stairs and examining everywhere I went diligently, looking for another door I could enter that I had managed to miss, or at least a way to make it past one of the fences. It was only as I was about to make my way back down the stairs for the umpteenth time that I stopped, and my eyes locked onto the golden pulley that hung above the staircase. I reached up and tried to yank it down. It didn't move, but I knew I found my answer. There were more golden pulleys hanging from both the top and bottom floors. One of them had to do _something_.

The one right at the bottom of the stairs didn't move either, so I went to the next one over on the bottom floor. It was hanging a ways over the edge, meaning I'd have to jump over to it and risk falling far down into the fish-infested water. I was too high up to tell what exactly they looked like, but given that I was in a dungeon I worried that they were some type of monster fish. I took a running start and leaped over to the pulley. As my hands clasped onto it, my body weight tugged it down. The staircase started to spin around, and came to a stop with the bottom below my feet. I dropped down safely, still surprised at what I had just watched happen. I hadn't known what to expect from pulling it down, but I don't think I would have ever guessed that pulling it would make the stairs turn.

Unexpected as it was, I was happy with my findings. I felt like I had just cracked the code that would help me solve the rest of the dungeon. Being able to move the stairs changed everything. I could get to places that the fences blocked off now, and I was that much closer to going home.

I walked up the newly-moved stairs, and at the top of the steps, I wondered which way I should go. I didn't think any fences were blocking me from getting to Ooccoo, but I already felt all turned around, and I wasn't sure which way I had to go to get to her. While I was searching before, I noticed that the baseboards along half of the room were red, and the other half were blue, which I thought could help me figure out which way to go, but now that I needed it, I started to doubt whether Ooccoo had really been on the red side like I thought she was. I decided to go right, down the red side, regardless, figuring it wouldn't be a big deal to turn back around and go the other way, and berating myself for not paying more attention.

I was right the first time like I thought. I picked up the pot Ooccoo was in, and turned it upside down. With a shake, both she and her son came plopping out of the pot.

"Free at last!" she proclaimed, shaking her feathers out. "Shall we stick together for a bit?"

I agreed, and opened up my pouch. She and her son both flew into it and I watched, still as amazed by them shrinking down to fit inside it as I was the first time. I closed my pouch, feeling much safer having them in there to bail me out if I ever needed.

The only door on the top red side was locked, and I had no key. After looking it over for any information that could possibly help me later—all I found was a fish head carved out of rock above the door, and some hieroglyphic-looking designs right below the fish that looked like tornadoes and squiggles—I went over to the blue side. Before entering on that side, I looked around the door. It had the same hieroglyphic-looking designs but in blue, and a similar fish head above it, but the fish's mouth was open unlike on the other side. Keeping that in mind, I went in.

It was another bridge with an unmoving waterwheel blocking me from getting to the other side.

With an annoyed groan, I left the room again to look for another lead. In front of the door, hanging over the edge, was a golden pulley. I jumped over to grab it, and the staircase turned again so that the top was right under me. At the bottom of the stairs was an unlocked door.

I dropped down to go to it, hoping that it wouldn't lead to another bridge I couldn't get past. Right as I got to the door, something to my left caught my eye. I walked over to it and picked it up. It was a folded piece of yellowed, somewhat soggy paper. I sat down and unfolded it, revealing a map of the dungeon that was slightly confusing. There were six different blurred drawings, each marked with two little symbols to the side. The last letter marking the top four was what I was fairly certain was a Hylian F, while the bottom two started with a Hylian B. I hadn't yet seen the other symbols that went with them, but I noticed that the one with the fourth F matched the one with the first B, and the one with the third F matched the second B.

"Midna?" I called.

She came out of my shadow. "Hm?"

"I still can't read Hylian text that much. What are these?" I asked, tracing my finger over the unfamiliar symbols.

"They're numbers."

That was what I was guessing, but I wanted to make sure I was right. Looking at the map, the third F floor and fourth F floor looked like what I had thought was the top floor and bottom floor. "So, these two... They're actually the first and second floor, right?"

"Right. F1, and F2." She floated down closer to the map, and pointed to where she spoke of. "Then up there are F3 and F4, and down here are B1 and B2."

"B is for basement?" I pondered aloud.

She shrugged. "I guess. But if you ask me, all of this seems like a basement..."

"All right," I said, standing up with the map in hand. "Thanks for not being a bitch and actually helping me."

"Don't act like it's weird of me to help you! I want to get out of here, quick, too! Of course I'm going to help."

"You didn't help me when I was wandering around for like half an hour looking for that pulley..."

"That wasn't my fault. I already told you, I can't see in your shadow. I can only hear. I'm never sure what exactly you're doing unless I come out of it. If you need help, just ask me, all right?"

"All right," I mumbled. "You're probably just gonna make fun of me for asking for help, though, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'll probably make fun of you, but I'll make fun of you while helping you. Even with a map, it'll be easy to lose your way in here. Just do me a favor and don't get _too_ lost."

Midna disappeared into my shadow, and I looked down at the map again. I didn't think I would get lost. I knew I might wind up confused and not sure what to do, but I thought it was easy enough to look at the map and tell where I was, at least. I folded it back up and put it in my pouch, and then went through the door.

Once again, it was another bridge, but thankfully there was no waterwheel. Instead, there was a creature that looked something like a cross between an armadillo and little green rhino, with a spiked armor-like shell on its back and horn on its head. It started to charge at me, and I quickly moved out of its way. It squealed like a pig as it rammed straight into the door. Its armor-shell didn't cover its rear, which I guessed was its weak spot that it could be killed through, but I decided to make a run for it instead. The door on the other side slammed shut behind me just in time to keep the creature out.

So soon after getting the map, I was already confused. The room I was in didn't resemble its counterpart on the map very much at all. The map notably didn't do a good job of showing that up above the room was a giant gear on its side, that had three smaller circular platforms hanging from chains attached to it. It looked like I could just swim over to two doors on the map, but they were high on the walls in reality and impossible to reach from where I was. My only option was to go down a curved tunnel, coming out closer to the bottom of the room. The path led me right down to a small silver key.

I got out the map again and looked it over. The door that was locked was the one that was by Ooccoo, on the second floor. I just had to go back past the bridge, up the stairs, and around, no need to move the stairs or anything.

Midna came out of my shadow again. "Lost already?"

"Not lost," I said, folding the map and putting it away again. "Just making sure I know which way I have to go from here."

"Hmm. Well, if you ever need to, you can ask me to remember things for you. Unlike you, I've got a memory like a steel trap!" With a giggle, she went back down into my shadow.

I rolled my eyes as I started leaving the room. "My memory is fine. It's just like you said; even with a map, it's easy to lose your way in here. It's not my fault the idiots who designed this place decided to make it so confusing."

The bridge behind the locked door ended up being just like the one on the floor below it. There was no waterwheel, and there was another one of those shelled creatures. I settled on calling them Rhinadillos in my head; even if that wasn't their proper name, I liked having something to call them aside from ' _those spiky green assholes_.' I ran right past that Rhinadillo too, and into the next room.

A Tektite saw me immediately and started hopping towards me, and I killed it quick enough. As I sheathed my sword, I couldn't help but think that the Zoras were being a bit dramatic about the temple being overrun by monsters. So far, outside of the water I had only come across the Tektites, the Rhinadillos, the Grape Jellies, and the lizard thing that I couldn't think up a catchy name for. They had all been easy to either kill or avoid, though I did admit to myself that it was probably just dumb luck that I killed the lizard thing as easily as I did. I also admitted to myself that me thinking about how easy the monsters were was nothing more than an attempt to calm my nerves and convince myself that being in the temple wasn't as bad as it really was.

I got out the map once more as I walked further into the room. It seemed that the room I was in was the outer ring of another circular room—the upper level of the room with the sideways gear, I thought—and my goal was to reach the doors on the opposite side of the ring. There were walls to either side of the room with gated archways, and I noticed the one to the right had a pulley up above where the wall abruptly ended. I put away the map, and went over to the gate. There were vines on the wall to its side, yet they were too high up for me to reach, so climbing up and over the wall wasn't an option. The gate was clearly made to go down into the ground, so I tried to push down on the bars, thinking it might have been like the doors, but it wasn't. It didn't move. It had to be the other gate, then.

Except it wasn't. That gate didn't move either, and upon closer inspection, I realized that couldn't have been the way to go at all; I could see another unmoving waterwheel through the bars, and there was no door to the inner room between it and the gate. It really was the left gate I had to pass through, but I didn't know how. I figured there was something to do with the pulley, and I had to get up to it using the vines, but I was too short to reach them.

I noticed a stash of five water bombs in the corner. Maybe I had to bomb the gates or something. I called for Midna again. She had to know more of Hyrule's workings than I did, so I hoped she knew what to do with the bombs. They were the only clue I had left.

After she came out of my shadow and I explained to her my situation, her answer was simple. "Why don't you use the bombs to knock down that stalactite over the vines, and climb up that to reach the vines?"

I gave her an unamused look. "And just how do you expect the bomb to get up there? Do you want me to grow wings and fly it up?"

"...Huh. Well... What all do you have in your pouch?"

"Gun, bow and arrows, the boomerang, the iron—"

"Boomerang!" Midna interrupted. "That seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Just use the wind it creates to carry the bomb up to the stalactite!"

Her plan seemed like it could work at first thought. "...But Link used his magic to control where the boomerang flew. I don't have magic."

"Then you'll just have to figure out a way to aim it really well without magic."

After a few minutes of thinking of different ways to go about it, I settled on one that somehow seemed both the most ridiculous and the most likely to work. I threw the bomb up in the air with my left hand, threw the boomerang with my right, and the bomb got sucked up into the tornado the boomerang created. Unfortunately for me, the bomb missed the stalactite by a few feet. It was on my fourth try, with only one more bomb left to spare, that I finally got it. The bomb exploded as it hit its mark, and the stalactite fell down to the ground.

"Ridiculous," I muttered. That had to be the most convoluted way of solving anything ever. I didn't quite believe that there wasn't a much easier way that Midna and I just weren't aware of.

"Hey, at least it worked," Midna offered before shrugging and disappearing.

I stuffed the spare bomb into my pouch just in case, and then finally made my way up the vines and over to the pulley. The pulley made the gate go down into the ground when I jumped and grabbed onto it. It was only after I was hanging that I realized the only way for me to get back down was to drop twenty or so feet to the ground. Closing my eyes, I let myself slip. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it still wasn't pleasant.

I had two options from there. I could go to the inner room from a door, or blow up the giant rock that was preventing me from going further along the ring.

I decided to peek into the room first, and make my final decision after that. When I saw one of the lizard things guarding a door on the opposite side of the room, I let the door slam back down and retrieved the spare bomb I had.

The bomb blew the giant rock to pieces, opening the way to another door. I ran past two more Rhinadillos and into the room. The newest room had a new type of monster in it. It looked almost like an oversized insect, and it walked around from inside a protective bubble of water. I slashed my sword at the bubble thinking that would pop it, but the little creature just giggled. It bounced towards me, and I backed away from it as far as the room allowed me. I got out my bow and arrow and shot at it. The arrow became embedded in the bubble without reaching the creature, and it giggled again.

I quickly attempted to reuse the same key from earlier on the locked door leading into the room I was headed for, but when it didn't work, I turned around and left through the door to the side of the one I had come in from, back into the ringed room. Down a ledge, several Grape Jellies were inching along the ground, along with a single red one—a Strawberry Jelly, perhaps—and I could see bats hanging on the walls near the waterwheel. Most importantly, a silver key was shining on the ground next to the wheel.

I used my gun to kill all the monsters in the room before hopping on down and grabbing the key. I turned around and walked back to the ledge, but when I got up to it, I realized it was higher than I had noticed while I was on it. Even standing on my tiptoes with my arms stretched above me, my fingers couldn't reach the top. I groaned. If Link was with me, he could have lifted me and helped me get up there, but as it were, it looked like I was going to have to go through the door and into the room with the lizard thing, and then back around. I just had to hope that my dumb luck would pull through again.

It had been standing in front of the door I was about to open earlier, but when I opened it up, it had moved away from it. Instead, it was standing on the gear, looking over the edge at the room down below. I closed the door behind me as quietly as possible, and stepped over onto the gear on my tiptoes, hoping that I could sneak by and leave without it noticing me.

It started to turn its head in my direction, and I hurried to hide behind the thick pole that held the gear in place. As I heard its footsteps get closer to the pole, I got the feeling that a fight would be unavoidable. I reached up and grabbed the hilt of my sword. While the monster had been holding both a dagger and shield when I walked in, it wasn't holding them like it was ready to fight and defend with them. Attacking it while it wasn't ready seemed like a good idea to me.

When its footsteps were close enough that I could tell it was just around the pole, I hopped out to the side with my sword and shield ready, and slashed my sword forwards. When I was already halfway through my slash, I noticed that the lizard thing already had its shield up. A fraction of a second later, metal hit metal. My surprise attack had failed. I decided that I may as well fight this one as I had the last one: like a total and utter wimp, hiding behind my shield as much as I could, and hoping like hell that one of my erratic slashes would eventually get the monster.

It seemed that I had already used up all of my dumb luck that day, as the monster was nowhere near as dumb as the last one that I had fought. It didn't repeatedly wack at my shield to no avail. From my hiding spot behind my shield, I could just barely see the monster jump up and spin around, and I felt rather than saw the blades on its tail slashing through my left thigh. At first, it felt like nothing more than a scratch, but as what happened dawned on me, searing pain started to set in. It was like being shocked again, with the sizzling feeling of electricity zapping along the laceration, getting stronger and stronger until it felt like it was on fire, and I couldn't help but scream.

I nearly threw my shield to the side as my swings became more erratic and more rushed. My will to defend myself had been completely overpowered by the intense urge to kill the monster already. I mimicked its own strategy, aiming for its lower body left uncovered by its shield. I got it repeatedly in just seconds, but the numerous cuts on its legs did nothing to stop it. I raised my shield just in time to deflect one of its attacks, and right afterwards, I managed to cut right across its stomach. It screeched loudly as it doubled over, its face lined up perfectly with my sword. I took the opportunity to stab it right through its mouth.

With my sword still inside it, the lizard thing exploded away into nothing.

I dropped both my sword and my shield and fell down to my knees. My eyes squeezed shut, and my hands balled up into fists. The pain started getting worse without something to distract me. I was scared to look at my cut, even though I knew I had to. I was terrified of seeing blood pouring out of my leg. I had never even noticed a _bruise_ on my skin, much less an open wound. I had always been careful to not do anything that would hurt me. What might have been a routine injury for others was an unheard of injury for me.

All things considered, I knew I'd been extremely lucky up until then, and a cut was really overdue. I had fallen off the bridge in the Forest Temple, I fell off Epona, I got whipped and thrown against the wall in the mines, and I got shocked by a giant jellyfish. I should have seen something else coming. I pressed my hands against my eyes, trying to get rid of the tears without letting them out.

When I finally gained up the courage to look down at my cut, I saw no blood. I saw right inside of the gash, where there were wires and metal encased in translucent material instead of bone covered by muscles and tissues.

I heard Midna say something, but I couldn't decipher it. I felt like my brain stopped working. No thoughts crossed my mind. I couldn't take my eyes off my leg.

An ear-splitting yell jolted me out of my stupor, but I still didn't feel like I was back to normal. " _Vanna!_ " Midna said. "What's going on with you? What is _up_ with your _leg?_ "

I gulped, finding myself unable to look at Midna, or anything other than my leg. "I-I don't know... Maybe... Maybe something happened to it when I was a baby? And I got a prosthetic leg that blended in and grew along with me, and my mom never told me it was fake...? Prosthetics have come a long way..."

"Is that possible?" Midna slowly asked.

"I'm sure Mr. Rider could pull something like that off..." I said. "But no one ever _told_ me."

"Well... You can communicate with people from your world still, right? Why don't you ask your mom about it?" she suggested.

I nodded and pulled out my phone. My fingers shook as I typed in the question and sent it. A long minute passed before my phone vibrated in response. It was an incoming call from my mother. I gave Midna a look, and she hid in my shadow again. Even though I knew she could still hear me from in there, it made me more comfortable to at least not have her staring at me.

"Explain," I said as I answered the call. "Now."

" _Please, Vanna,_ _stay calm._ "

"What happened and why did you never tell me?"

She sighed. " _I..._ _I don't want to beat around the bush. You deserve to know, but just, stay calm."_

"Just _tell_ me already."

" _Y_ _ou know that I've been_ _helping Mr. Rider beta test_ _for a long time,_ _and_ _y_ _ou know how passionate he is about his inventions._ _He needed someone he could really trust to help him out with_ _one_ _, and..._ "

I was certain I saw where it was going. My face contorted in anger. "So you let him chop off your baby's leg just so he could test out a growing prosthetic?!"

" _That's not what happened._ "

"Then what happened?" I demanded. She was silent for a few seconds. "Tell me!"

" _H_ _e_ _needed_ _a human family to take in_ _his new_ _est_ _Synthuman_ _prototype_ _._ "

I froze up again.

 _No_. She was lying. She was definitely lying. There was no way.

"I feel _pain_ ," I blurted out. "I feel pain and I eat and drink and my heart beats in my chest and I grew up like everybody else. And I'm _deaf_. Why would I—why would a Synthuman be _defect_ _ive_ _?_ A-and Mr. Rider said himself that we didn't have sentient robots yet! I'm _sentient!_ "

" _I'm_ _here with Mr. Rider, and I'm_ _passing the phone to_ _him right now, okay?_ _He can_ _explain_ _everything_ _to you_ _better than I can_..."

I heard shuffling before Mr. Rider's voice came through. " _Vanna, I... I'm not sure where to start_ _,_ " he said. " _Before you, there was ..._ _w_ _ell,_ you _._ _N_ _ot long after I created_ _you_ _,_ _Lee and Daina_ _left_ _you_ _home alone one day,_ _and_ _you_ _accidentally cut_ _yourself_ _._ _You_ _saw what was inside of you_ _, and_ _you_ _just_ _..._ _lost it._ _When your mother came home,_ _you were_ _a metal skeleton standing in a pile of synthetic flesh and organs._ _You were_ _driven to insanity by the knowledge of what_ _you were_ _._ _I_ _had to power_ _you_ _down._ "

I felt something in my stomach that I had never felt before. Nausea.

Why would he lie to me about something like that?

" _After wiping your memories_ _again_ _and messing with you a bit_ _, I powered you back up,_ _and you had a brand new start_ _,_ " he went on. " _I knew from the_ _beginning_ _that y_ _ou couldn't feel human_ _without a beating heart_ _, or if you didn't feel pain,_ _or if you couldn't perform normal human bodily functions,_ _even though_ _those things aren't_ _necessary_ _for your survival,_ _so I had to make you capable of them_ _._ _You_ _aren't really deaf, either. It was just_ _a_ _nother_ _white lie_ _to make you feel more human._ _And_ _no, Vanna, you didn't grow up like everyone else._ _You've only been powered on for three years_ _._ "

"Three ... years?" I said, my voice a higher pitch than normal. Why was I even playing along? He was still lying. "I—!"

" _You never grew up. Think back. You don't actually have any memories before_ _your fourteenth birthday_ _._ "

More lies. I was about to shout _I_ _do_.

But I stopped myself.

I could have sworn that I remembered growing up, but when I actually searched for a single memory of my childhood, I could think of nothing before the day of my fourteenth birthday. It was like...

" _That was when you were powered on_ _,_ " Mr. Rider finished my thought.

My brain—or some technological imitation of a brain, according to him—started going frantic, trying to find memories that weren't there, trying to find a way to explain away everything he said. "But—but I've seen pictures and videos of myself when I was little! I have them saved on my phone, in my hand! Mom even showed me pictures of the sonos she got when she was pregnant with me!"

" _That wasn't really you_ ," he said. " _That was who you were modeled after. Your parents' daughter_. _She died as a little girl, and your mother couldn't have any more children, so I offered to model_ _my new Synthuman_ _after_ _her_ _so that your parents could at least see what their daughter could have been like if she got the chance to grow up_. _The human Vanna is the one in the pictures and videos you've seen, not you._ "

The words ' _I am the human Vanna, I_ am _the human Vanna_ ,' repeated in my head, as if just thinking it enough times would make it true. I knew that it was nothing more than a desperate attempt to delude myself, but I couldn't stop it. Tears had started flowing down my cheeks rapidly, and my breaths were heavy.

"... _Why?_ " was the only thing I could get out.

" _Why_ what?" Mr. Rider sounded bored, like my feelings were of no concern to him.

"Why would you even _make_ me?! So you could brag that you tricked me into thinking I was a person when I'm not?!" I said, my voice trembling through my cries. I started to cry harder, reality truly hitting me as I spoke it. "You already knew how it destroyed me once, so why would you even power me on again?! _Why?!_ Imagine finding out that your whole life has been a _fucking lie!_ How—how could you _do_ this to me?!"

" _I didn't create you to brag._ _For years, people have been dreaming of sentient robots,_ _and I decided to_ _try my hardest to finally_ _give them what they wanted_ _._ _I_ _just didn't think my little '_ sentient _'_ _prototype_ _would prove as much of a problem as it has._ _After_ _I found out the_ _first time that the_ _thought of not being human was enough to make it go insane_ _—_ _"_

"' _It_ '?" I repeated. ' _It_ ' was _me_.

" _—_ _I thought that, as long as_ _it_ _believed_ _it_ _self to be no different from anyone else for years, then_ _it_ _wo_ _u_ _ld be able to handle the truth when_ _it found out_ _, and what happened the_ _n_ _wouldn't happen again. That's_ _part of_ _why your mother was always so overprotective of you, you know. You weren't supposed to find out yet, and you especially weren't supposed to find out like this._ _I'm sorry for not_ _being able to_ _tell you earlier, but_ _I truly believed that_ _your ignorance of your status as a Synthuman was essential_ ," he said without a single shred of remorse in his voice. " _I_ _suppose_ _I was wrong, for once._ "

There were a million things I wanted to say, but I couldn't make myself say any of them. My world was crashing down around me, and all I could do was sit there and cry.

" _There's no point in crying._ _Just get over it_ _._ "

My grip on my phone became so tight that I heard it crack. I started to yell into my phone, but I was barely aware of the words leaving my mouth. The only thing I was sure of was that I screamed out countless insults and questions that I wouldn't accept any answer to. My throat was burning by the time my livid tirade was over, and I fell back into crying.

A voice that didn't belong to Mr. Rider sounded quietly through my phone. " _Did she lose it again?_ " I recognized the voice as Zi afterwards.

Zi knew all along. _Zi_. It was one thing for my ' _family_ ' to hide such a secret from me, but my _best friend?_

" _Dad, let me talk to her..._ "

A shuffling noise told me Mr. Rider's phone was no longer held up to his face, but it wasn't for the reason I thought. I could barely hear Mr. Rider say, " _No, Zi._ _You need to_ _move on_ _._ _She shouldn't be acting like this_ _after I reprogrammed her_ _._ _A_ _s_ _soon as_ _I finish making these NEVA's and you bring her back here, that's it._ "

I hung up immediately, holding my phone tightly in my quivering hand.

My Synthuman hand, with metal bones and artificial flesh.

* * *

 **:)**

 **...I was gonna just end this chapter with nothing more than that, but I might as well go ahead and explain myself and my questionable choices. A long while back, my best friend and I made up our own little story based off of the song Humanoid by Tokio Hotel. It was more or less just us goofing around and roleplaying, but I continued to be really interested in the idea. I wrote a lot of drabbles about Humanoids/Synthumans over the years, and really wanted to include them in an actual story. I've also always been very intrigued by OC insert stories. Eventually my brain started nagging at me like, "Hey, what about a Zelda insert story ... _but robots?_ "**

 **So, I put in hints to hopefully make Vanna seem a bit off (like never dreaming, not sweating or having a stroke in immense heat, sticking to magnets without iron boots, etc.) but that could generally be explained away by something else. If it was too obvious from the start that Vanna's a Synthuman, then it would really call into question how she never figured it out herself, and I didn't want it to be like those infuriating murder mystery novels where you figure out who the murderer is 200 pages before the main character does. I erred on the side of caution because of that, but I've been worried I might have ended up going too far in the opposite direction, making the reveal seem too out of nowhere to everyone but me because I knew from the start that Vanna was a Synthuman. I hope that if you feel that it was too out of nowhere, you can at least see where I was coming from with attempting to find the right balance.**


	19. Reflection

I spent minutes frozen in place, blurry eyes boring into the gash in my leg.

I still didn't quite believe it. I couldn't.

My hands reached up and I dug my fingers deep into my ears, ripping out my hearing aids. Even once they were out, I continued to hear my ragged breathing, and the quiet electrical hum I had always attributed to them. It came from _me_. That constant buzz was from my body.

I whispered to myself, " _No_ ," and I heard it. I heard it just the same the next ten times I repeated it.

I opened up the photo app on my phone, and found my collection of old pictures I had saved. I clicked on the very first picture, with ' _Vanna Lee Meadows – July 8th, 2102_ ' written at the bottom. My mom was in a hospital bed, dark hair disheveled and an exhausted smile on her face, and my dad was sitting next to her, grinning so wide that his blue eyes looked like two little black lines. I was bundled up in his arms. My skin was tinted a purplish-red, and my pink hat left some of the little red hairs that clung to my head visible.

The next picture was taken in the same room, but over on a bench. This time, it was a young, happy Jaylene holding me, while Kalina sat next to her looking discontent. I continued to scroll through the pictures I had, watching as I grew from a newborn to a toddler to a child.

The collection ended similarly to how it started, and not long after it. The last picture, labeled as being taken in 2106, had me laying back on a hospital bed—I remembered being told it was taken after I had my appendix taken out—smiling weakly with my parents and sisters at my sides.

Except they weren't my parents or my sisters. I was never born, never held as a baby, never grew, never had my appendix taken out, never had anything that the pictures showed at all, because that little girl wasn't me. That little girl was dead and her life was never mine.

My phone slammed against the wall before falling into the room below, and my hearing aids followed.

Midna came out of my shadow, slower than she usually did, and she spoke softer than she ever had to me. "Vanna, I... I heard all of that..."

I turned my body away from her, slouching over and covering my eyes with my hands. "Leave me alone."

Mr. Rider's words wouldn't stop repeating in my head. ' _A_ _s_ _soon as_ _I finish making these NEVA's and you bring her back here, that's it._ ' I knew very well what ' _that's it_ ' meant.

I reached around to the nape of my neck. I ran my fingers over the layer of synthetic skin just below my hairline, feeling for an imprinted product code. When I didn't find that, I pushed down into my skin until I felt what I feared the most was there, something right between two of my vertebrae, hard and as small as a grain of rice. My own tracking chip, like all the other Synthumans had. No matter where I was on our planet, he could, and would, use it find me. If I couldn't stop him from powering me off before, there was no way I could keep him from powering me off again. He stopped at nothing to do whatever he set his mind to do, and he had already set his mind to end me for not acting how he programmed me to.

I couldn't go home, not as long as he was there. I felt safer in a world with pterodactyls and fire-breathing alligators and lizard swordsmen than in a world with him.

He wasn't going to win this time. He couldn't power me down if he could never find me.

But I had no idea where to go. I had no home in Hyrule. I thought about going back to Link's house, but Ordon seemed far too obvious. As close as Zi had always been to me, his loyalty to his father was unfaltering, and just like how Mr. Rider would stop at nothing to end me for not acting how he wanted, Zi would stop at nothing to find me for his father. He knew that I had been in Ordon before, and there was a high chance that would be where he'd start his search.

The only other place I knew of and had been so far was Kakariko. It seemed like an obvious place for Zi to search as well, especially considering that was the last place I'd told him I had been in, but at least he had no idea that I had claimed my own little shack there. It wasn't luxurious—not that I'd ever lived in a place I considered to be, though the dinky modern apartment I lived in in America certainly looked to be by Hyrule's standards—but it would have to do.

I pulled my pouch off of my belt, and reached in and plucked out Ooccoo and her son.

"What do you think you're doing?" Midna asked.

I didn't bother responding to her. I was done with her. "Ooccoo, can you please get me out of here?"

"Yes, I can! Ooccoo Jr. can warp you right out, and you can return right here whenever you please!"

"He can come back to you by himself. I'm not coming back."

"What do you think you're _doing?_ " Midna asked with more force. "If you leave, you're not getting your bracelet back!"

"I don't _want it!_ " I yelled back. "There's no point anymore! I can't go home when Mr. Rider will kill me if I do!"

"But we need to get that last Fused Shadow!"

"Fuck your Fused Shadows! I don't owe you anything for you _ruining my life!_ " As I yelled at her, my fist went flying towards her, only for my punch to pass right through her shadowy body.

Midna stared at me blankly for a few seconds, before silently slipping back into my shadow. Still breathing heavily, I looked at Ooccoo. She had her son held in her wings, and it took me a moment to realize that she was trying to cover his ears.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "Can I go, now?"

* * *

Once Ooccoo Jr. had warped me out and went back to his mother, I went up the incline out of the lake and found Epona grazing not far from the bridge where I left her. I brought her back over to the bridge, intending to use the safety wall to climb up onto her. As I settled on her saddle, I looked out past the deep basin that housed Lake Hylia, where the green grass of the field faded into dirt, which faded into sand that stretched as far as the eye could see. There were structures out in the desert, and I saw what looked to be a village. I thought briefly that it would have to be a better hiding place than Kakariko because of how far away it was. My mind wandered to Castle Town, then. I hadn't been there either, but Link had claimed it was filled to the brim with people, so even that seemed like a better potential hiding place. It'd be easier to blend in if it was densely populated, and on top of it, much easier to get to; I imagined it was near the castle, which was partially visible from the field now that the wall of twilight was gone.

Epona nickered, and I was reminded that I couldn't get to the desert village or Castle Town without her. I couldn't just steal Link's horse. He needed her, and even if he didn't, I didn't know how to care for her. I made a noise and tapped her sides with my feet, and she took off.

It was dark by the time we got back to Kakariko Village, and aside from my cut not hurting any longer, I felt just the same as when I left the temple. Telma's horse and wagon were right outside of the Elde Inn. Link was back already, and I knew he had to have realized that Epona and I were gone. I left Epona near Telma's horse, and when I went to walk back to my shack, I noticed light through the windows. I had never bothered to light the sconces inside; someone else had done it, and I had a clue who it was. My fists clenched as I walked up to the house and opened the door.

Link was sitting on my bed, arms crossed and scowling. As soon as he looked me over, his expression softened.

"...What happened?" he asked gently.

"Just get out," I answered, my voice breaking.

I saw Midna appear out of the corner of my eye, and she made a motion with her arm. Link looked back and forth between us before getting up and silently walking out, Midna leaving with him. I locked the door behind them.

I started to walk towards my bed, but I stopped and turned as I saw something else moving in the corner of my eye. It was my reflection in the mirror.

I knew they were, but I double-checked that the windows were up high enough that nobody could see in before I stripped out of the Zora suit and stood in front of the mirror. My hands roamed my body as my eyes roamed my reflection. I felt human. I looked human.

But I looked exactly the same as I always had. Sure, I had only been powered on for three years, and most girls didn't have a drastic change in appearance between fourteen and seventeen, but they did have changes, however minute they were. I didn't. I couldn't even blame Link for thinking I was fourteen when we first met. There wasn't a single part of me that had ever changed since I was ' _fourteen_.'

My youthful face and short body were easily explained away by the idea that I was just a late bloomer. The fact that hair can only grow so much explained why my hair had always ended just a few inches above my hips without ever needing to be cut, and the fact that I never bothered to cut it regardless meant I never learned that it probably wasn't even possible for it to grow. My mother's explanation for why my nails didn't grow—' _nails stop growing at a certain point, just like hair, and that point is different for everyone_ '—had been satisfactory enough for me to never question it again. I felt incredibly stupid for falling for the lies I had been fed.

Yet, as I soaked in every detail of my body, it was easy to see how I fell for the lies. I had no reason to assume that I _wasn't_ human when what I saw in the mirror looked no different from anyone else. I looked overwhelmingly realistic. I even saw light veins on my wrists and hands and the inside of my elbows, even a few just barely noticeable ones on the front of my hips and my chest. I held my fingers against the pale blue lines on my wrist for the first time. No blood coursed through them. They were just surface details painted on where there should have been veins.

I raised a hand to my chest and pressed down. It was far from the first time I had done that, but it was different this time. I had always found comfort in the steady beat of my heart, and now it just made me uneasy, because now I knew it wasn't a real heart. It didn't pump blood throughout the rest of my body. It was just a thing thumping in the middle of my chest in the way a real heart would to delude me into thinking I was a real person. Even something as small as my navel was for nothing more than deception, never having been attached to an umbilical cord. That was all everything was for.

I stood closer to the mirror, my nose almost touching my reflection. My hazel eyes were glossy, and my orange lashes were clumped together from being coated with a thin layer of tears. The whites of my eyes had turned red around the edges. Everything about them looked unquestionably real. The eyes were one thing Mr. Rider always got right on his robots that his competitors in the market just couldn't seem to, but just like my heart, it didn't matter how real my eyes seemed. Nothing, not even the way little red lines showed up to mimic the appearance of blood vessels the longer I cried, could make me forget that they weren't actually real.

The only giveaway was the cut on my leg. My skin wasn't stretched out like it was when my legs were bent, making it impossible to see inside the cut while standing. Still, even unable to see inside it, it was clearly not what a cut looked like on a normal human. No blood seeped out of it, and it didn't look at all red or irritated around the edges. It was a clean, sharp line, that looked more like flattened dough that someone had dragged a knife through than any sort of human injury. Looking at it, I understood completely why I had ripped myself to pieces the last time I found out I was a Synthuman. I wanted nothing more than to peel off the fake flesh that covered me to find out what else was hiding inside.

I couldn't stand looking at myself for much longer. I redressed myself in the blue dress Luda had given me, and curled up under my blanket, thinking that it would have been better if NEVA had just killed me in the first place.

* * *

After hours laying there grieving the loss of my old life and hoping to fall asleep, I heard a knock on my door. I poked my head out from under the blanket, and upon looking out the windows and finding that the sun wasn't even out yet, I went right back under. Whoever it was could wait until daytime. Or another day entirely. Or they could wait forever.

The person knocked again, and was ignored again, until I heard a voice through the door calling out my name. It was Link.

I had been telling myself that I wanted to be alone, but hearing his voice made a part of me start fighting back. I didn't want to be alone at all. I never did when I was sad. I would always run to my ' _mom_ ' or Zi when something was upsetting me, and if they weren't available for some reason, I made do with one of my other friends that I wasn't as close to, but none of those people were options anymore. Link was the closest thing I had to a friend left, and I had never needed a friend more in my life.

Brushing off my fear that he was still mad at me for stealing Epona and he only came to berate me, I got up and opened the door. Link was standing there, wearing only his hat, untucked undershirt, pants, and boots, holding one of his brown pouches in his hand. He didn't look mad. He just looked tired, with that little touch of sadness that he hadn't been able to hide since Colin died.

"I can't sleep," he confessed.

"Me either," I mumbled.

He nodded towards the room, silently asking to come in. Sighing, I stepped to the side and let him enter. I closed the door as he went to go sit down on the edge of my bed, and then I joined him. Neither of us looked at each other or said anything for a minute.

"...So, Midna told me everything," he said.

I looked the opposite direction of him, towards the door. I didn't know how to feel. I was angry at her for telling him when it was none of her business to do so, yet relieved that I didn't have to be the one to tell him, and at the same time, I was horrified that he knew the truth. I didn't want anyone to know what I was.

"...I'm not mad at you for stealin' Epona and the things in my pouch," Link went on. "Well. I am, a li'l, but not as much as I was. It was stupid and dangerous for you to take Epona out there without me. You both could'a got killed."

"I _know_ ," I groaned out. I squeezed my eyes shut and curled my fists. "If you just came here to scold me, then you can leave. I know what I did was stupid and I wish I never would have listened to _Midna_ ," I couldn't stop myself from saying her name with all the disdain I felt for her. " _She_ was the one that convinced me to do it, so you can tell _her_ off, not me."

"I'm not here to scold you. I wanted to get that out the way so you'd know that I'm here because you're upset, and... I thought maybe you'd wanna talk about it some by now, since neither of us is asleep anyways."

I wasn't sure that I was, or that I ever would be ready to talk about it. "...How much do you know?"

"Midna said she could hear everythin' that man said to you, and she told me all of it. I know you're a robot."

Hearing that word come out of his mouth felt so wrong. "Do you know what that word _means?_ Do you even have them here?"

"What, robots? I know about them. I don't know if we have them anymore, or if we ever truly did, but I've read books that mentioned us having robots in ancient times. My pops even used to read me a story about them when I was a kid. It was one of my favorites," he said. "...You're ... different, though. You're so _human_."

"But I'm not," I said under my breath. The admission made tears start to prick at my eyes again. "I'm not a _person_."

"What're you talkin' about? Of course you're—oh."

I wondered how it took me saying it aloud for it to hit him that I wasn't a person like he had assumed I was.

"Do you remember what I told you in the mines when you said that only humans were considered people in your world?" he asked.

I thought back to our conversation. He had told me to be careful around anything that wasn't a person, and that humans, Hylians, Gorons, Zoras, and Fairies were all people in Hyrule. "...You told me about the different kinds of people in Hyrule." When he didn't respond, I asked, "Why?"

"Don't you realize what I'm saying? You don't have to be a human to be a person."

I rolled my eyes, and I felt a tear start to fall. "Just because there are other people here that aren't humans doesn't mean that I'm a person, too. People are _born_ , not created. Pretending that robots are people is crazy. You don't have to lie and pretend you don't care to try to make me feel better. It's not gonna work."

"I'm not lying. I don't care if you're a robot, and I bet our robots counted as people to everyone else who lived back then. Y'know, the last few weeks I've realized there are more people than I ever thought. There are shadow people, and Ooccoo's people, and honestly, I've been thinkin' that _animals_ are people, too. A robot being a person ain't that crazy at all."

After wiping my eyes, I finally got the courage to look at him for the first time since he came in. I supposed he did always strike me as the kind of person who would genuinely think that animals and things that were definitely not people counted as people. There wasn't a shred of insincerity to be found in his face. He really didn't care.

I hoped that he wouldn't care about me nearly throwing myself at him for a hug, either. He felt rigid for a second before the tension started to wash away, and he wrapped his arms around my back in return.

"Do you feel better now?" he asked.

"A little," I answered, my voice slightly muffled. I sniffled. "I'm happy that you don't care, but I... I think you're out of your mind, and I still don't think I'm a person, but I was never upset just because of that. My life is _ruined_. I can't go back home, Link. If I do, Mr. Rider will find me no matter where I go, and even if I don't Zi is going to try to chase me down here so he can bring me back, and if he does Mr. Rider will kill me, so now I'm stuck here and I'm going to constantly have to be worried about him finding me, and I..." I gulped, before adding in a tiny voice, "I'm scared."

Link seemed to ponder what I said. "...You can stay with me, if you want to."

I pulled away from him, and looked at him confusedly. "What, and keep on going with you wherever you go?"

He shrugged. "If you stay in one place, he's gonna find you a whole lot easier."

"I don't understand. You're the one that didn't want me to come along with you in the first place because you were worried about my safety, and just hours ago you were mad at me for leaving with Epona for the same reason, but now you want me to go along with you into more dangerous situations?"

"It's different, now. If you're gonna be in danger no matter where you go, I'd rather you be in danger with me than by yourself."

Again, I found myself having conflicting feelings. Even if it would be harder for Zi to find me while traveling with Link, that advantage itself would open up more room for trouble. The temples and monsters inside them could be just as dangerous. Ultimately, I ran the risk of dying either way. I wanted neither, but like with everything else anymore, there could never be a happy medium. It was risking death at the hands of a monster, or risking death at the hands of the man who created me. I just had to decide which one scared me the most so I could go the other way.

It was no wonder Link could see the Light Spirits and I couldn't.

"It was just an offer," Link said after moments of me contemplating it. "You've got some time to think about it. I'm gonna stay in Ordon for a few days, and maybe spend some time here once I'm done there. I wanna make sure Ilia's all right."

I pursed my lips as I realized how much I didn't like the idea of being stuck in the village with just Renado, Luda, Telma, and Barnes at such a time. The thought of Link's presence alone made me feel more at ease. "Can I go with you? Just—just down to Ordon, and back here, at least. I'm not sure yet if I want to keep traveling with you after that..."

"I was 'bout to ask if you wanted to." Link put a hand on my back, and smiled just a little bit. "You won't have to worry about Zi if you're with me. I can keep you safe."

Even feeling as awful as I still did, I couldn't help but return his small smile. His offer was touching, and it was what I needed to hear when I was terrified about someone wanting to kill me or hand me off to someone else to kill me. Just two weeks ago, I would have been offended at his implication that he could protect me better than I could protect myself, even knowing full well that it was probably true, but reality had kicked my pride in the face and I was now beyond the point of turning down help I knew I needed. Zi was 6'6", a whole seventeen inches taller than me, and his legs were practically as long as my body. I wouldn't stand a chance running away from him, and though he had almost no muscle to speak of, I knew without a doubt that I was even weaker, so there was no physical fighting either. Link, despite barely being taller than me, had strength on his side at least, which could give him a leg up on Zi. If he could wrangle 500-pound goats, he could wrangle someone lucky to be pushing 170.

"So when are we leaving?" I asked.

"I think we should try to get some sleep first, but there's still something I wanted to talk to you about. Well, there's a lot I want you to tell me, but for now..." Link grabbed his pouch that he had sat next to him on the bed. "...Midna told me your cut is still open. I got a needle and thread and scissors from Renado. I thought maybe you'd want me to close it up for you...?"

I looked down at my lap, where my wound was hidden under my dress. I wasn't sure if stitching it shut would be a good idea. I remembered Mr. Rider's personal secretary, a Synthuman he named Synthia, had once accidentally cut her finger and calmly came into his office—not seeming to mind seeing the inside of her robotic finger whatsoever—while I was in there with him. Mr. Rider had put a special type of glue on her, and after he pressed the skin back together, it was almost impossible to tell that she had ever been cut at all.

But there was no running off to Mr. Rider's office to get him to glue a wound shut for me, and I couldn't go on for too long with an open cut on my leg. Sooner or later I would want to take a bath, and I heavily doubted that Mr. Rider would have made me waterproof on the inside with the expectation of water flooding in under my skin.

"It'd be nice if you would," I said. I started to pull my dress up my leg, only to pause an inch before the cut could be seen. Suddenly, I felt hesitant to show it to him, and I hurried to come up with a way to stall the situation while I tried to calm myself. "...Um, actually... D-do you know how to stitch?"

"Yeah. Uli taught me how to, and I got to practice on Talo a few times."

I gave a short hum. It was nice that he was qualified, or as qualified as a person from a tiny village with no school could be—not that that had really factored into my hesitance. My hesitance was so irrational that I couldn't begin to justify it even to myself. He already knew what I was, so there was no reason to be scared of showing him, yet I still had trouble bringing myself to move my hand.

"Will you promise me something first?" I asked. He nodded. "Please don't tell anyone about any of this."

"Promise."

* * *

 **Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year as well! I've got a fanfiction resolution to keep up this trend of not taking months to update. I think the fact that I've finally gotten into the point of the story I was excited about from the beginning should help a lot. (May 2018 edit: ...I think I forgot that school exists when I wrote that)**

 **I'm not exactly the kind of person who goes on and on asking for reviews, and I'm pretty sure the first and last time I did was way back when I posted chapter three or something early on, but I want to now. This story is pretty close to fifty favorites (and I'm still super thankful to you guys for not getting tired of me and noping out by now!) but majority of you haven't actually said anything at all. I can't blame those of you who haven't, really; I'm a silent reader a lot, too, and I always feel super awkward when I do leave reviews. So, maybe think of it as a late Christmas present to me. Do you love something? Hate something? Is there anything you want to see or anything you're looking forward to? Any predictions for what's gonna happen? (That's not a list of questions I'm actually asking by the way, just giving ideas of what to say since I know that would probably help me when reviewing, lol) Let me know!**

 **Mirria1:** Thank you for the reviews! I responded to the first one before I saw the others but I don't know if you saw it. I know he's been stated to be 16 in TP before and for awhile I had him be 16, but there have also been other sources stating he's 17, and I just preferred the idea of him being a little closer to adulthood for this story so I ended up changing him to 17. I'm actually really surprised that I'm the first person you've seen kill Colin at the point in the story that I did! I've only ever read a few TP oneshots and skimmed a few non-oneshot TP stories because I'm a super picky reader, so while I've never seen it either I wouldn't know just how original that was. If you had asked me though I would have guessed someone else out there probably had to have done it as well, because killing him seemed quite rational to me. But I guess I do just love being awful to characters :D


	20. Guidance

After Link left, I attempted to go to sleep. I tossed and turned throughout the night, only to give up when light started to pour in through the windows.

I intended to go outside and pace the village to hopefully calm my frazzled nerves, yet I stopped in my tracks as I grasped the door handle. A sense of dread washed over me, and I couldn't pinpoint why at first. I thought that maybe it was solely out of the irrational fear that Zi would be standing on the porch when I opened the door. He told me the new NEVAs were halfway done when I had asked on the 12th, and it was the 15th, so if Mr. Rider's work on them continued to progress at the same rate, that meant I still had about nine days left before having to worry, and technological difficulties could give me even more time. Whatever the case, I knew from working with Mr. Rider that things were rarely finished ahead of time, so the chances of him having finished already and me opening the door to Zi were practically nonexistent. I had no reason to be scared yet.

I realized with a jolt that it wasn't who was potentially outside that was setting off alarms in my head at all. It felt like there was somebody behind me.

Midna's shadowy form was hovering a few feet above the ground when I looked back.

"What do you _want?_ " I nearly growled as I turned to her.

"Link got to talk to you earlier, and now I want to," she said.

I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. "Unless it's an apology, I don't want to hear it."

"I'm fresh out of apologies to give, but I have—wait!"

I ignored her plea for me to wait, and finished walking out. She followed me outside, and I came to a stop as she floated right in front of me. I looked down the length of the village, where numerous Gorons were loitering around the buildings.

"The Gorons are going to look this way and see you," I said.

"Whatever! You can just tell them their eyes were playing tricks on them if they say anything. I have an idea that I need to tell you!" Midna said.

I knew she wasn't going to stop bugging me until she finally got to tell me whatever her idea was. "What is it?" I asked, so indifferently that it didn't sound like a question.

"I've been thinking. You said your bracelet is a ' _time traveling device_ ,' and you wanted it to take you to the future in your world, but instead it brought you to this one..." she said. I raised an eyebrow, and she continued. "What if you get it back, and go to your world during a time when the man who wants to kill you either is dead or hasn't been born yet?"

I was surprised that she actually had what seemed like a very helpful idea at first thought. Escaping to a different time period in my own world would be a perfect way to avoid him. He would probably make Zi keep searching to the ends of Hyrule's world for me, never having a clue that I had returned to our own world. He would have no idea of where, much less _when_ , I was.

At second thought, I realized it was just another scheme to get me to work for her.

"How many _times_ do I have to tell you: I do not owe you. You. Owe. _Me,_ " I said.

"Do I _really?_ " she asked, dragging it out.

"Yes! This is all your fault! If it weren't for you, I could be at home right now living my life just like I used to, still having no clue about the truth!"

"You would have found out one way or another. If you found out at your home, wouldn't he have killed you immediately, since you would've been right there at his fingertips? That already happened once before, didn't it? All of this happening—all of these things you've been complaining about... They've all given you the chance to avoid a worse turn of events, don't you think?"

I had been prepared to tell her off regardless of what she would say, but after she finished speaking, I was silent. She put things in a light that I never saw them in. I had been so focused on the negatives of showing up in Hyrule that I failed to see the positives, and the positive she described was perhaps the most positive of all. She was completely reasonable—helpful, even—and I hated it. Out of contempt for her, I tried to think of a way that she might have been wrong, but all were marred by uncertainty. _Maybe if I found out at home, I would have had NEVA on me at the time, giving me the chance to escape right then and there; or maybe I could have just used my TPort to get far enough away that he could never catch up, maybe even finding a way to disable my tracking chip to make it harder._ Every one of the few scenarios I could think of started with _maybe_. As much as I wished things didn't have to be the way they really were, at least I knew with certainty that I had a chance. How _much_ of a chance I had was unbeknownst to me, but it was a chance nonetheless.

I looked down at my feet, curling up my fists. "You might be right..." I quietly admitted. "But that _doesn't_ mean I owe you."

"Your loss. I was just trying to give you a little more incentive to go along with Link, since he wants you to."

"Yeah, I'm sure _that's_ really what this is all about," I said, rolling my eyes again. "Just know that if I do decide to go along with him, it won't be out of debt to you."

"That's okay. I'll accept it as payment for your debt even if you pretend that it's not. Isn't that so nice of me?" she said with a giggle.

With one final eye roll, I turned and started walking away from her again. I decided on going to the secret alcove at the back of the graveyard, thinking that I'd feel weird pacing the village while the Gorons were standing around. I felt weird about hanging out around a graveyard, too, but at least it was nice and secluded. Once I was back there, I relaxed against the earthen wall. The alcove wasn't quite as pretty as it was at night time with the waterfalls no longer glowing, but it remained the most scenic place I'd ever seen with my own eyes. The springs in Faron and Ordon were quite close to holding that title, which made me glad about the prospect of going back down. I'd have relaxing places to go to attempt to clear my mind.

I knew that making a decision of whether to go along with Link or not would be hard, but it felt harder now that there was more to consider. Even if I decided on going with Link, I wouldn't know about going to my home in a different time upon getting NEVA back. If I did, then I had to decide on the past or future. The past opened up possibilities for paradoxes, while I had no idea at all what life in the future would be like. Wherever I would stay, I'd have to relearn how to live my life, and for all I knew, living in the past or future of my world could be worse than living in Hyrule and being on the run from Zi.

Soon enough, I felt like I had thoroughly contemplated every aspect of my dilemma, yet I still felt so far from being able to make a decision. It all needed to start with the one decision I had realized I'd need to make the night before: would I rather die at the hands of a monster, or at the hands of Mr. Rider? I was continuing to weigh my options and potential outcomes when I heard Link say my name. My eyes opened quickly and I looked around, but he wasn't in the alcove. I leaned over and looked through the hole I had crawled in through, and Link was crouched down on the opposite end.

"Are we leaving?" I asked.

Once he nodded, I crawled out, and we left the graveyard together in silence. Link ended up mounting Telma's horse and leaving his to me, presumably because he thought I wouldn't want to ride a horse with a dead person in the wagon behind it. I almost wished he would have just let me ride hers as I struggled to get up on the much-taller Epona. I heard movement behind me, and then I felt hands grasp my sides and lift me up. Embarrassed, I quietly thanked Link as I settled onto Epona, and once he was back on Telma's horse, we were off.

As soon as we were out of Kakariko, Midna popped up and floated along with us between the horses' heads. " _So_ ," she said enthusiastically, "I gave Vanna a great idea earlier, Link! Vanna, why don't you tell him it?"

Link looked at me expectantly. "She just gave me more options, really," I said. "If I go along with you and she gets my bracelet back, I could go back home, but either in the past or future where Mr. Rider couldn't find me, instead of staying in Hyrule. But I still don't know if I'm even going with you or not, so..."

"But you know he really wants you to," Midna said in a sing-song voice.

"If you don't want to, that's fine. It's all up to you," Link said.

I felt myself tense up automatically. That was almost word-for-word what Mr. Rider had said to me when I was still trying to decide whether to use NEVA or not. I knew that the similarity didn't really mean anything—there was no way Link could have known—but just hearing Mr. Rider's voice in my head put me on edge.

"...If you stay, but not with me..." Link started again, "...would you maybe stay with Ilia? If her memory doesn't come back during her time in Ordon, Renado wants her to stay in Kakariko under his care until it does... I don't want her to be so alone."

I felt a pang of misplaced jealousy just hearing how tenderly he spoke of her, and I mentally berated myself for it. I never had a reason to feel so stupidly jealous before, but now I absolutely didn't. Even the craziest person who believed robots were people wouldn't want to actually be with one. I had no chance at all—not with him, not with anyone, and that realization hurt more than any of them. All of my hopes and dreams for a normal future had been stolen from me.

I simply nodded and looked back to the way we were headed. "I was planning on staying in Kakariko anyways if I did decide to stay. There's already that empty house I've been staying in there, and all."

"Well, if Ilia gets better and you change your mind, my offer for you to stay in my house while I'm away is still open."

I merely shook my head out of disbelief. "You're too nice. I don't get it," I said quietly.

"Why not? Are you planning on robbing me after all?" he said with amusement.

"No, it's just... We don't even know each other all that well, and you're still nice to me."

"That's how it's supposed to be. You're nice to people until they give you a reason _not_ to be nice."

I pursed my lips. Given his circumstances, it made sense that he was so trusting from the start. He hadn't been raised in a place where you had to keep your house on lockdown for fear of being robbed, where you had no choice but to be initially distrustful because of the criminals and objectionable people that lurked around every corner. His home was nice, and so he was nice. Jersey City never allowed me to have the same naivety that Ordon Village allowed him; and even ignoring all of that, I was the one with the overbearing mother that pounded safety protocols into my head and barely let me out of her sight. Since day one, I was made to be wary of the world around me and all of its potential dangers.

"...And, I think we do know each other pretty well," he said. "Especially now that I know about your ... er, predicament."

I wasn't sure how much I agreed with that. I knew that he was a seventeen-year-old from Ordon Village; his parents died when he was eight; he was a left-handed swordsman with magical abilities that wrangled goats and rode a horse; he was good at sumo wrestling and he knew how to backflip; his best friend was Ilia; he loved kids and kids loved him back; he hadn't even met thirty people in his life; he needed glasses, read a lot of books, slept a lot, and never went to school; and he believed that the world was created by three Goddesses. When I mentally recounted it all like that, it seemed like a decent amount of knowledge about him, but some of the most basic things were missing from that list. I didn't even know his last name or his favorite color.

Knowing that he still had questions about my ' _predicament_ ,' I thought I had found the perfect opportunity to distract myself from my racing thoughts and to keep the spotlight off of me, so I wouldn't have to try to give him answers to questions that I wasn't even sure of myself.

"Link?" I said.

"Hm?"

"What's your full name? Lincoln...?"

He gave me a weird look. "Link's not short for anything."

That was fair enough. People often thought Vanna was short for Savannah or Giovanna or something when it wasn't. "Okay, then. What's your last name?"

"My name is Link," he said slowly. "That's it."

"Really? No middle name, no last name? Just ... Link?" I said.

"Just Link," he affirmed.

"But what if multiple people named their kids Link?"

"Ordon's too small for that to happen."

"What if there was another Link living in Hyrule, then?"

He shrugged. "' _Link of Ordon_ ' would do just fine. There's no need for parents to give their kids _three names_. That kinda stuff is just for royalty. I think Princess Zelda's got three. I don't get it."

"Three might be a bit much, since middle names aren't that important, but it's crazy that you don't at least have a last name to trace your family with."

"What's the point of having middle names if they're not that important?"

"They're just like, second first names, and normally they're names of people in your family to ' _honor_ ' them. Like, my..." I tensed up again, "... _dad's_ name was Lee, and my middle name is Lee."

"What's your last one?"

"Meadows." I hated saying it, now. It only tied me to my fake parents.

"So, you're Vanna Lee Meadows," Link said.

Impulsively, I said, "No, I'm not."

"What? You just said..."

"The real Vanna Lee Meadows is dead," I said. "I'm just Vanna, like how you're just Link."

Part of me wanted a new first name, too, now that I knew I wasn't the real Vanna, but I couldn't just let it go, not when I had always known myself as Vanna first and foremost. I'd already lost enough of my old life in the past twenty-four hours.

"That'll help you fit in more, so that's good," Midna chimed in.

"It'll help me _if I stay_."

"You should," she muttered under her breath before retreating back into the shadows.

I sighed and looked over at Link. "...What's your favorite color?"

* * *

Majority of our ride was spent asking and answering trivial questions. I was expecting Link's questions to eventually morph into queries about my predicament, though it looked like he picked up that I wasn't exactly in the mood to talk more about that, and he seemed pleased enough finally getting to ask me just what exactly ' _Zelda games_ ' were (though my answer only served to confuse him more before he resigned to the idea that he would never quite wrap his head around it). Around the time we got to where Hyrule Field ended and the densely-wooded Faron began, our horses slowed their pace without instruction, as if they knew we were nearing our destination. Link, too, had a change in demeanor the closer we got to Ordon. It seemed that Colin's quickly-approaching funeral reinvigorated everything Link had felt when he first learned of the boy's death, and he seemed right back to the way he had been.

As we passed by Ordon's Spirit Spring, I noticed that Ilia was sitting in front of the water, absentmindedly running her fingers through the sand. She turned and glanced up at us for the brief moment we were visible in front of the open gates, but said nothing. I decided that I would go to her after getting off of Epona, and give her the chance she deserved. Besides that, I knew she would be the only one in the village not busy grieving Colin, given that she still had no idea who he was. I didn't want to intrude on everyone else's time of mourning.

Link and I came to a stop just outside his house—the wagon was too wide to make it through to the main part of the village—and I told him of my intention to go see Ilia. He nodded, not making any eye contact or sound at all. I tossed my leg over and slid off Epona, my feet hitting the ground with a quiet thunk, and I walked off after regaining my balance. When I was back just outside of the spring, I paused at the gate. Ilia didn't seem to hear me coming back. I knocked on the gate to get her attention, and she looked up again.

She gave me a little grin. "You didn't have to knock. You can come in."

I walked to her, quickly glancing over to the empty alcove where I had met up with the Hero's Shade numerous times and pondering where he went when he vanished. I sat down on my legs next to Ilia. She looked at me, her eyes the most vibrant green color that almost seemed to sparkle in the daylight. Finding myself able to see better through my unfounded jealousy now, I thought that Ilia was, admittedly, kind of cute. She had a unique appeal, but an appeal nonetheless.

"So... How are you doing? Memory back yet?" I asked.

Ilia shook her head and frowned, looking down at her fingers. "No. I thought that being back in my home village would bring up _something_ , but... I don't remember any of this place or any of these people at all."

"Well... Maybe you just need more time to see everything?" I offered. I wondered if she felt as awkward as I did.

She sighed. "My ... _father_ , tried telling me everything about my life, and showing me all of my belongings, but nothing rung any bells. I'm not sure what else can be done besides waiting..."

"If it makes you feel any better... I just found out that I lost my memories, too. Not all of them, but ... enough to make me mad."

"Mad?" she said. "I'm not mad that I lost my memories... I'm just upset. It hurts me that the children and that man—my _father_ —look at me and see someone they know, only for me to look back at them and see strangers. I want to remember them, but I don't."

Something Mr. Rider said hit me suddenly. He told me that when I tore myself apart, he powered me back up after wiping my memories _again_. That little word had slipped right past me in my panicked state, and it was only now that I realized he even said it. Something else had to have happened that he didn't tell me about, and realizing it only made me more furious. Knowing only that I tore myself apart and that my memories were really wiped twice was not enough to satisfy me. I deserved to know what else happened to me; but unlike Ilia, I had nobody who could at least try to fill in the gaps of my life for me, and I knew without a doubt that the chances of recovering my lost memories were much lower than hers.

"...Are you okay?" she asked.

I blinked, coming back to my senses, my vision focusing on her again. "Fine. I just... I just realized something. Sorry."

"Remember something?"

"Technically, but it wasn't something I forgot... Just something I never noticed before."

"Oh. Well, speaking of that... Did I know you beforehand, as well?"

"No. The other night was the first time we met. I'm not from Ordon."

"Ah, that's nice. That makes me feel better about not knowing your name," she said, smiling. "What is it?"

I paused involuntarily. "It's—um, Vanna."

"Nice to properly meet you, Vanna. My name's Ilia, but I guess you probably figured that when that little girl kept calling me Ilia the other night, didn't you?"

I just nodded, even though I figured out that she was Ilia even before then. "So, uh, what were you doing out here?"

She looked towards the spring, and up into the trees that surrounded it. "Praying. I was told that a Light Spirit resides in this spring, and that everyone was praying here for the children's and my safety. I thought it wouldn't hurt to pray for my memory back."

Not wanting to crush her dreams, I bit my tongue and decided not to say anything about how the Light Spirits, if they truly existed, didn't like to listen very much. Despite all the prayers, Ilia still lost her memory, and above all, a child was dead.

"What about you?" Ilia asked, peeking back over at me.

I shrugged, and looked to the spring like she did. "I have to make a really big decision soon, and it's weighing down on me. I came here to relax."

"If you don't mind me asking, what are you trying to decide?"

For a moment, I considered making up a lie, or avoiding an answer all together, but I chose vagueness instead. "I have to decide if I'm going to go along with somebody on a dangerous mission to help save the world, or if I'm going to settle down somewhere that I'm in danger. Those are my only choices."

"And they're both equally as dangerous?"

"Basically."

She hummed. "Well... If I were you, I think I'd go on the mission."

My eyebrows drew together, and I looked at her. That wasn't the answer I would have expected from a simple farm girl, one with memory loss or not. "Why?"

She looked back at me, almost as confused as I was. "To save the world, of course. And not only to save it, but to _see_ it. This world..." Ilia's vision returned to our surroundings once more, "...it's so beautiful, isn't it?"

Like her, I again took in the scenery. It really was beautiful; more beautiful than anywhere I had ever seen back home. I had seen more monotone buildings reaching up into a polluted sky than anyone would ever wish for. Maybe I could get used to breathing fresh air and taking in all the new experiences this world had to offer. There were still more places to go, people to talk to, bravery to be gained and Light Spirits to be seen. Hiding in a shack would bring me nothing.

' _If I'm going to die_ ,' I thought, ' _I might as well die trying to defend a beautiful world and its innocent inhabitants._ '

* * *

 **I planned to have this up in January (1, woops, 2, sorry) to coincide with the new summary and new cover art that I put up then, but January and February ended up flying by without me even really noticing. I'm finally getting into the swing of my classes, at least. Anyways, the summary isn't too different from what it was, but since I first started this story, I wanted to include something about robots in the summary as a little *wink wink nudge nudge* kinda thing and it only took me about a year and a half to figure out how to word it in a way I liked.**

 **Also, awhile ago I decided to switch over all my art for this story to DeviantArt, so now if I ever draw something new for this, it'll be there, same username as here.**

 **SHSLseer:** Thank you so much! That's an interesting theory, but probably not. I was thinking of her pupils as being more like camera lenses in a way and you can't really see any internal mechanisms when you look into those.

 **Opalander & Jack54311**: Thanks for reviewing!

 **LilyAllycia** : I sent you a PM because my reply was long as well, and I don't want FFN's wordcount on this story to get messed up any more than it already is (it's already over 2000 words off, even accounting for the ANs and replies, for some reason), but I just wanted to thank you again for your review!


	21. Back on Track

It was September 19th when we were preparing to leave Ordon Village for Kakariko. I knew the estimate was rough and unreliable, but I couldn't stop myself from counting down the days I had left before I had to officially start to be worried about Zi's arrival. I had at least five days left—but that didn't stop me from worrying in the meantime. I'd spent most of my days in Ordon sitting at the spring or with the goats frequently checking behind me, and my nights were spent staring into the dark at the vague outline of Link's door, listening to hear if the locked knob rattled. Only when I was around others—conscious others—did I feel I could let my guard down, but I was alone more than I would have liked. Link spent nearly all of his time with the mourning townspeople, and the only non-mourning person I could have spent time with, except Midna, was Ilia, who couldn't get away from her father for too long.

"Vanna?"

My eyes snapped away from whatever I had been unknowingly staring at and made contact with Link's. He was still frowning, just like I'd gotten used to seeing, but he looked mostly concerned, not just hurt.

"You all right?" he asked.

I nodded and picked up some bread off my neglected breakfast plate. "I'm fine."

"You've barely been eatin' food since we got here..." he said. I took a bite as if to prove him wrong, though I knew we both knew he was right. "...And I don't think you've gotten any sleep, either, have you?"

I looked down at my plate, my fingers playing around with the food I couldn't bring myself to eat. "No. I just... I _can't_. It's like—every time I close my eyes, I picture Zi sneaking up on me and taking me home, and then Mr. Rider..." I sighed. "But I'm fine. Really. I stopped being hungry and tired days ago. I just wish I could sleep instead of having to be awake all the time..."

"If you say so," Link said, sounding unconvinced. He finished the last bite left on his plate. "Made your decision yet? You've had a lot of time to think since you've been awake."

"I did the first day we got here, I just haven't really had the chance to tell you."

He looked surprised for a second, and his frown didn't return afterwards. "Oh. What'd you choose?"

I hesitated a moment, knowing that telling him my answer would finalize it. "I'm going with you, at least for now. Once I get my bracelet back, I might leave after a while if I feel like Zi is making my life too difficult when he gets here, but I guess we'll just have to see about that..."

Midna emerged from my shadow just then. "Good choice! You know that you _could_ get your bracelet back after we beat Lakebed Temple and get that last Fused Shadow, though, right? And if you get back on your ass quick, that could be as early as _tomorrow_."

"I know, but I want to stay a bit longer just to see more of the world, and that'll give me more time to make my final decision," I said.

"Wait _,_ are you two going back to the temple again without me?" Link asked.

"There's only one pair of that armor, and Vanna knows I'm not giving her her bracelet back if she doesn't help out, so..." Midna said.

I gave Midna a quick glare. "Actually... I think we should only need one pair of the armor for us to go to the temple," I said.

They both looked at me curiously. Rather than explain myself with words, I decided to show them something I had realized I was capable of. I closed my mouth tightly before plugging my nose with my fingers. Pressure slowly began to build up in my chest, and it started to become painful around the thirty-second mark. The pain reached a high before it suddenly stopped hurting, and I felt fine. Even though my chest wasn't rising and falling as normal, I _felt_ normal, like there was nothing physically wrong with the fact that I wasn't breathing at all. Mentally, on the other hand, I was still just as freaked out as when I first tested my theory. It was the strangest, most unnatural thing, to not breathe and feel no negative consequences of it.

It seemed to take them both a few seconds to notice that I wasn't breathing, then a few longer for them to realize the implications. By the time the pain had settled, Link looked amazed, while Midna just looked amused. Midna started to laugh, and I allowed myself to breathe again.

"So you've been _terrified_ of drowning this whole time when you don't even need air anyways?" she said.

"Better that you found that out now than never. Least now we can go together so I ain't gotta worry about you getting kidnapped and me not being able to do anything about it," Link said. He stood up from his chair. "Reminds me..."

He walked over to his bookshelf and started to pull some of the thinner books out to check their covers before sliding them back into their spots. He eventually found what he wanted and pulled it out completely, and then he brought it over to me. The last word on the red cover caught my eye first. It looked like _Pabats_ , but I immediately knew that it said _Robots_. It took me longer to decipher the middle word as _Ancient_.

"' _The Ancient Robots_ ,'" I read aloud.

"Not sure how factual the events are since it's a children's book an' all... But I thought you might like to see it. It's about robots and humans working together to mine materials and build things, and fight off evil robots."

I opened it up. On the pastedown was a drawing of a Hylian man and a peanut-shaped thing with a wonky face, a sort of pirate hat, and giant three-fingered hands connected to the peanut body by squiggly lines.

" _That's_ what the robots here looked like?" I asked. It was no wonder Link seemed wowed by how human I looked.

"If that book's got it right, then most of 'em, yeah. The evil ones later in the book look more human. Not as much as you, though," Link said. "I'm gonna go ahead and get Ilia and say bye to everyone. I'll yell for you to come out when we're ready to leave."

I simply nodded in response, and he walked out. Unfortunately for me, Midna didn't slip into his shadow and leave with him, and instead stayed floating in the air where she was. I hoped that if I didn't look at her then she wouldn't try to converse with me, so I tried to focus on reading the book. ' _A long ..._ yule? _No,_ time _ago, in the desert_...'

Midna cleared her throat.

'... _t_ _here was a_ phce _... oh,_ race _of people called the Ancient Robots. ..._ People? _The metal peanuts? Maybe it's not just Link. Everyone from Hyrule must be crazy..._ _'_

She cleared her throat again, louder this time.

I groaned and slammed the book down. "Oh my _god_ , what do you want?"

"I just have a question, is all."

"No."

"You don't even know if it's a yes or no question!"

I sighed. "What is it?"

"We're leaving for Lakebed Temple tomorrow morning. Do you think you could convince Link to come with us then, or do we have to go by ourselves again?"

"He just said we're going together."

"But he didn't specify a time. He said a few days ago that he was considering staying with Ilia in Kakariko Village awhile after they would get back from here. I don't want to wait around any longer. It's been almost three weeks, and we've still only got two out of three Fused Shadows."

"If you want to go so bad tomorrow, then _you_ convince him," I said.

"He wouldn't listen to me back when he first found the kids in Kakariko Village and I was trying to get him out of there! If there's one thing he won't budge on, it's staying with those friends of his for as long as he can..."

"So what makes you think he'll listen to me?"

"You can tell him you're worried about your safety hanging around in such an empty village where you'd be easy to spot. How's that Zi guy gonna make it inside of an underwater temple without the Zora armor?"

I gulped. Monsters and all, the temple did seem safer. Even if Zi managed to get in there, either via teleportation or some other means, which didn't seem likely to happen, the layout of the temple was sprawling and confusing enough that he probably wouldn't be able to find me anyways.

"Guess I'll try," I said.

When a satisfied Midna dove back into my shadow, I opened up the book and started reading it again. The only good thing about me not being entirely literate in Hylian was the fact that having to pay close attention to every individual letter made reading a great distraction from my thoughts. I was only about halfway through the book when Link called for me from outside. I carried it out with me, planning to put it in the wagon since I had left my magic pouch in Kakariko Village.

I was surprised to find that Ilia wasn't the only person getting into the wagon. Beth, Talo, and Malo were all coming along.

"What's up with all of this?" I said to Link.

He picked up Malo and helped him get in. "The kids managed to convince their parents to let them go back to Kakariko."

"What? Why...?"

"They all want to be with Ilia to help her get her memory back, but Beth also wants to keep the Zora prince company, Talo wants to stand guard there to make sure everyone gets to safety if more Bulblins show up, and Malo wants to, uh..."

"Run my business," Malo said from inside the wagon.

"Apparently the four-year-old is running a business," Link mumbled.

"Oookay, then..." I said. "Um, before we go, can I ask you something?" Link nodded, and I asked my question quietly. "Can we go to the temple in the morning?"

Link looked inside the wagon quickly, then back to me. "Any reason you want to leave so soon...?"

I frowned and shrugged. "I'm just worried about Zi... There aren't many good places for me to hide in Kakariko, but I don't think he could get into the temple. I know you really love the kids and all, but... I'd love to not be kidnapped and murdered."

"Okay," Link said with a nod. "If you think you'd be safer, then we'll go in the morning."

* * *

"That'll be 300 Rupees."

My jaw dropped. As soon as we had gotten back to Kakariko, Malo went into the shop near the entrance of the village that I had seen him go into before, and early the following morning I went inside. He told me, quite rudely, that if I wanted something, I was to buy it, even though it was an unmanned shop that he had merely decided to take over. When I expressed interest in the shield and binoculars on display—I thought it'd be best if Link and I both had our own metal shields rather than one of us having to settle for the smaller wooden one, and the binoculars would have been handy for Link—I was hoping that maybe Malo would say he was just joking about the whole situation.

"Okay, look, I have no idea what the value of any amount of Rupees means in Hyrule, but that seems like a _lot_ of money to be asking for merchandise that was never yours in the first place," I said.

"So I take it you don't have the money," Malo said.

"No, but—"

"The door is behind you."

"Are you kidding me? This isn't even your shop! You can't just walk into an abandoned shop and say everything in it is yours!"

"Didn't you walk into that abandoned house and say it's yours?"

My jaw dropped again, and I struggled to find a way to make myself not seem like a hypocrite. "D-don't you turn this around on me! That's _totally_ different!"

"Tell you what, I'll give you a special deal just this once to commemorate the grand opening of Malo Mart," he said. "...299 Rupees."

I should have thought ahead and stolen the stupid shield and binoculars while he wasn't in there. I considered just hopping over the counter and grabbing them—what was he gonna do, bite my ankle?—but I left instead, planning to ask Link if he could get Malo to give him them for free before setting off. He had been in the Elde Inn eating breakfast when I left for the shop. When I got back, he was finished eating, and he had had his arms crossed on the table with his head resting on them. I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder, and he raised his head and wiped at his eyes as he yawned. Seeing him so sleepy made me start to feel tired for the first time in days.

"You wanna go now?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I want you to go to ' _Malo Mart_ ' first and see if you can grab some things," I said. "I couldn't get Malo to give me what I wanted..."

He stood up, raising an eyebrow. "What kinda stuff does he got in there already?"

As we left the Elde Inn, I explained to Link the things Malo had in the store and why I wanted them. He also thought that it was a good idea to get them before going, but he said he didn't have the money, either, since his job as a wrangler didn't pay all that well. Still, he agreed to attempt to coax Malo into lowering the price, or at least letting him pay later, hoping that his close relationship with the child might work in our favor.

It didn't, and we left on Epona with no binoculars and the two shields we'd already had in the first place.

Before we got on Epona, Link had stashed his sword and shield into his pouch, which made riding behind him a lot more comfortable than it had been the last time. Without thinking about it, I ended up resting my head against his back and closing my eyes. Neither the hard material of the saddle beneath us nor the way we bounced on it was enough to stop me from starting to doze off. What did, however, stop my dozing from turning into sleeping was the feel of something small and cold hitting my cheek.

My eyes blinked open, and just as they did, another something managed to fall right into one of them. It took me a moment to realize that it had been a raindrop. More and more started to come down, and in no time, it was absolutely _pouring_ , so hard that each of the droplets stung as they hit me. I tilted my head down as much as I could behind Link to minimize the amount that could smack against my skin. It was annoying that we were going to have to be soaking and cold before even getting inside the temple, but a part of me was relieved that the rain had stopped me from falling asleep against Link. I felt embarrassed enough that I had basically been cuddling up to his back for that short amount of time.

The rain continued to pound down for the rest of our lengthy ride to the lake, effectively being a sleep deterrent for me. I was relieved when we made it down to the bank where the overhanging walls around the lake protected us from the rain.

"Can I have the Zora armor?" Link asked.

After I managed to retrieve all of its components from my pouch, Link went into a large, dark tunnel to get dressed. I decided to change out of the outfit Luda had given me and wear the outfit I'd been wearing when I got to Hyrule, along with with the pants I'd borrowed from Uli, figuring that would be easier to swim in than a knee-length dress. A minute passed after I had finished getting changed and Link still hadn't come back out, so I assumed he was having trouble figuring out how to wear the pieces just like I did.

I went ahead and got into the water to mentally prep myself for what was coming. The water felt much colder than it had the last time, though I wasn't sure if it was because it was actually colder or because I wasn't wearing the wetsuit. Either way, it was miserable, but not having to go through the temple alone was worth the price of freezing my ass off.

Holding my breath, I fully submerged myself in the water, and I encountered something I hadn't considered. I had no idea how to stop water from going up my nose, other than to hold it with my fingers, and that would make it even harder for me to swim than it already was. I knew that swimmers were somehow capable of doing it, but it was something I never learned how to do as a someone who always avoided going completely underwater. While contemplating about it, a thought crossed my mind. If I had fake lungs that didn't truly need oxygen, it wouldn't matter if they filled with water either, right?

I let go of my nose and let the water flood inside to test my idea. An uncomfortable feeling of fullness built up in my chest, but I didn't feel like I was dying, at least—it was almost more uncomfortable mentally, just like it was when it hit me that I didn't need air in the first place. Such a perk should have made me happy, but it only made me be filled with an overwhelming sense of dreadfulness because it reminded me that I wasn't the human I longed to be.

I saw something from the bottom of the lake that looked to be swimming closer to me, and I realized it was a Zora. I surfaced so I'd be able to talk better and coughed all of the water out. The Zora's head popped up out of the water not long after mine. I couldn't tell right away if it was one of the ones I'd seen the previous week or not.

"Oh! Hero! Is it really you?!" she said. Apparently, it was one of the ones I had seen. Now that we were above water and I could both see and hear the Zora better, I was reasonably confident that it was female.

I glanced over to the tunnel that Link still hadn't come out of. "Yeah, it's me. The Hero."

"I thought those were your eyes! You're no longer wearing the Zora armor, so I had to ask to be sure." She tilted her head. "You're female?"

' _You're one to talk_ ,' I thought. "Surprise?"

She smiled, giving me a good look at her pointy teeth. "It is a bit of a surprise! The Hero was described as a Hylian male in our legends, and... You're not even Hylian, are you? Ah, but, it's no matter—legends don't always play out how they're told. What matters is that you made it out of the temple alive! We didn't see you come out, so we assumed the worst. How was it?"

"I didn't see as many monsters as I expected, but I'm still not done in there. I'm going back and finishing up."

Just then, Link walked out of the tunnel fully geared up. The armor fit him much better than it had fit me, so he was able to wear the pieces I couldn't. Looking at him, I realized that if the thigh armor had fit me, the lizard thing wouldn't have been able to cut my leg and send my life into an intense downward spiral. I couldn't help but wonder how different things would have turned out if I only had been able to wear that one piece of armor.

"Who is this wearing your garb?" the Zora asked.

"That's my friend that I'm taking with me inside the temple. I'm allowing him to wear the outfit," I said.

"But what about you, Hero? You're not a Zora, you can't survive underwater without it!"

I reached up above the water and dismissively waved my hand. "I'll be fine. Hero powers, you know..."

She didn't look like she believed me. "I hope so. I will be praying for your safety."

"Thanks," I muttered. Those prayers were going to do nothing to help us.

The Zora bowed her head and went back underwater, and I looked over to Link.

"I kind of already lied to them when I first came here and said I was the Hero so they'd let me in," I explained. "Sorry for stealing your thunder."

"It's all good, _Hero_ ," Link said, grinning. He got in the water and swam over to me. "Guess you can lead me to the temple, since I'm your sidekick for today."

I swam further out into the lake with Link beside me until we were above the entrance to the temple to minimize the amount of time I'd have to spend underwater, and then I pulled out the iron boots from my pouch. Once they were on my feet, I started sinking faster than Link could swim downwards. I came to a stop at the bottom of the lake, and I had already taken the boots off and put them away before Link caught up with me.

Since the opening of the tunnel leading inside the temple was so small, Link had to swim in first, and I followed the light that shone from the pendant he wore. As we got to the part where the tunnel went upwards towards the end, I realized that perhaps it was for the better that we couldn't get that second metal shield from Malo. I hadn't been thinking about the giant jellyfish swimming near the end of the tunnel. If my bones were made of metal and I had a metal sword on me, then I already had to be highly conductive; it was bad enough that Link already had his own metal shield and sword, and adding yet another a metal shield to the mix would have made things even worse. It made me worry for his sake. From experience, I knew that I could handle being shocked by the jellyfish, but I didn't know how bad it could be for Link.

Link swam up by himself, not even noticing that I stayed behind at the bottom until he was already practically out of the tunnel. I waved my arm to urge him to go ahead out, and I didn't start to swim up until he got the message. I remembered getting shocked the last time I went through the tunnel, and how it had been because I was looking down at the jellyfish lower in the tunnel as I continued to swim upwards, so I decided that this time I wouldn't look back at all. I passed the first one with no problem, and as I swam closer to the side of the tunnel opposite the jellyfish that had stung me before, I thought that I was in the clear—until it suddenly decided to propel itself closer to me and started generating electricity before I had time to react.

I could just barely hear Link yell from above the water. I wanted so badly to scream for him to pull me out, but I couldn't speak, and I knew that realistically things would have been worse if he touched me anyways. What felt like an eternity later, the jellyfish let up, and I started swimming again as fast as I could. Link reached into the water and helped get me out, and I coughed out as much water as I could.

"Are you okay?!" Link asked.

"I'm _fine_ ," I said, voice high. I turned my head away from him and wiped at my eyes. Since I got to Hyrule I'd been crying more often than I ever did before, and it made me feel like such a _loser_ —and crying in front of him made it even worse. "It—it already happened before..."

Link was silent for minutes while I sat there crying from the pain, and all I could think of was how little he had to think of me.

"...Do you want to go to sleep?" he gently asked. "It always makes me feel better..."

"What about—what about monsters?" I said.

"There are none in this room, and even if some end up coming in here, I'll kill 'em. And you said yourself Zi probably can't get in here... But I'll take care of him too if he does. You're completely safe. You can finally get some sleep."

I heard shuffling from his direction, and when I peeked over, he was going through his pouch. He pulled out his green tunic and walked further back from the water, and then folded his tunic up and laid it on the ground. He looked at me and patted it.

"Not much of a pillow... But it's better than the hard floor," he said.

Out of pure stubbornness, I initially wanted to decline his offer, but just imagining myself going to sleep made it so tempting. I walked over and lay down with my head on the makeshift pillow, and I closed my eyes.

"Goodnight, Vanna."

* * *

 **This chapter didn't wanna get done x.x Good news is now that it's over with, we're getting closer to stuff I'm really looking forward to!**

 **So,** **I'm going through with adding more s** **ettlements** **, notably Gerudo Town and one up in Snowpeak. I'm having trouble deciding on a name for that one,** **and** **I'd rather do something you guys** **think sounds best** **instead of me just choosing randomly.** **I've been thinking of calling it Snowden** **Village** **if I'm going** **original,** **or** **since** **BotW** **is like the only Zelda game that** **has** **good** **location names** **that would work for Snowpeak** **just borrowing something** **like** **Tabantha Village,** **or** **Coldsnap** **/** **Pikida** **/** **Kopeeki/** **Icefall** **Village** **.** **Basically anything but Snowpeak Village because** **I think that's kinda boring** **.** **Edit:** **Going with Tabantha!**

 **Jack54311** : I've never really thought of what you suggested, actually. They're separate worlds, albeit with some overlap in a way. It would be pretty cool to see someone use the idea that Hyrule's world and ours are completely one and the same though, and having characters find lost relics from our time, like a totally busted up laptop or something. I really love these types of stories so if I ever did another one once I'm done with this I might just have to do that lol.

 **Knifeninja55** : Thanks :)

 **ObviousHUN** : Thank you! I don't have enough room to add anything else to the summary, though... The character limit is 384, and mine is at 383, but I'm not actually sure how much an 'OC insert' tag would help the story gain followers regardless. Only 3 Zelda stories show up when you search 'OC insert' and none of them even have 10 followers, so I don't think it'd help much. I was hoping that just having the story properly tagged as having an OC would help those looking for these stories to find this easier. Anyways, maybe my story doesn't have as many followers as some other OC inserts do, but 70 is still a lot to me!


	22. Mother

After I woke up, things happened in a blur. Link and I had trouble finding our way through Lakebed Temple because it seemed like every door we opened led to the same area as the last. It didn't help that I had already completed a chunk of the temple. My memory of the layout was so hazy that I couldn't remember where I left off, only that I had already been in the temple, and the map that I'd gotten before had succumbed to water damage and was left an incomprehensible mess.

Finally, we got to the room where I left off, a room that I remembered very clearly—the room with the lizard thing on top of the sideways gear high above the ground. This time, the lizard thing wasn't there, but rather some other type of enemy that I'd never seen before. It almost looked like a conglomeration of a lizard thing and a Bulblin, but for some reason I couldn't get a good enough look at it to really make out many details. Link told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. I stood by the door and watched with worry as Link engaged in a battle with the monster.

All seemed to be going well until the monster managed to stab its sword right through Link's midsection. The color drained from Link's face as the monster laughed and pulled its sword out, letting blood gush out of him. It sliced through a paralyzed Link again, and again, and again, until there was more of Link covered in blood than not. With one final, powerful swing of its sword, the monster sent Link falling off of the gear, and I watched with horror as Link's body slammed into the ground far below.

My body jolted and my eyes snapped open. I sat upright quickly and looked around the room. I was all alone, back in the room I had fallen asleep in earlier. My thoughts were swirling with confusion. Link died, then all of a sudden, I was back here?

 _Link_ _died_. As the words rung through my mind, tears welled up in my eyes, and my heart started to pound heavily in my chest. I buried my head in my hands.

I had no idea what to do. That wasn't how things were supposed to happen. Link was supposed to go through all of the dungeons, to defeat Ganondorf at the end and save everyone. Without him, this world was doomed. And it was all because I had stood on the sidelines in fear. I didn't save him. He was dead because of me.

"Vanna, what's wrong?"

I moved my hands down and looked at where the voice had come from. Link was walking out from behind one of the columns that surrounded the circular room.

I was so confused that all I could do was sit there and stare. He didn't have that ethereal look to him like Colin's ghost did, so I was sure he wasn't a ghost—but how could he have possibly been standing there? I watched him _die_.

Link walked over and crouched down in front of me. "Hello? Anybody home?" he said, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

"What—what _happened?_ " I said. "How'd you get back here?!"

"Uh... What?" he laughed out.

"What do you mean ' _what?!_ ' You got stabbed and you fell like a billion feet! You _died!_ "

"Vanna, none of that stuff happened."

"Yes it _did!_ I saw it! I was standing right there, and you—"

"Everything is fine," Link said, reaching over and grabbing my shoulders. He smiled, the sort of comforting smile you give to a scared child to calm them. "It was just a bad dream, and you're awake now."

A bad dream... I had been dreaming?

"I've... I've never dreamt before," I said.

Link's eyebrows raised. "Never?"

"Never."

"Well, you have now, because I promise you it was a dream. You fell asleep while I was sitting right next to you, and I just went up to go to the bathroom, and then you woke up."

"But it felt so real..." I said with a frown.

"They do, sometimes." He patted my shoulders and let go of me. "Do you wanna go back to sleep for a while? It's only been a couple hours."

"No... I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep, and besides, you'd probably be tired and want to go to sleep by the time I'd wake up."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," I said.

We both stood up, and as Link stashed away his green tunic into his pouch, I pulled out the bow and quiver from mine and slung them over my shoulder. I wished that I could have had more time to sleep, but I believed what I said; there was no way I was getting back to sleep, not with the image of Link's mutilated body lying lifeless on the ground stuck in my head.

Something he had said sunk in suddenly as we started to walk to the door. "...There's a bathroom in here?"

"There is now."

"Ew!" I said, playfully smacking his arm.

He laughed—an actual, real laugh. I had heard chuckles out of him, but nothing like that before. It made me laugh, too, and I realized that it was the first time I had since I found out I was a Synthuman. It felt inappropriate to be laughing over something so juvenile in the circumstance we were in, but it was the perfect thing to break the tension that had been hanging over both of us for weeks.

"You two are such _children_ ," Midna said. "No wonder you get along with the village kids so well..."

At her comment, it came to my awareness that I still didn't know how old Midna was. She had a very high-pitched voice and very tiny body, but that tiny body of hers had such wide hips that I knew she couldn't have been a child, at least, whether she was a member of a strange shadow race or not. Maybe she was fifteen or so, I thought. She had the _attitude_ of a fifteen-year-old girl, for sure.

"Midna, how old are you?" I asked.

"Nineteen. Older than both of you. Especially you, now, since you're really only three, aren't you?"

My pace slowed. In the technical sense, she was right; if I'd been created when I thought I was fourteen, then that really meant I had only existed for three years.

"I _am_ seventeen. Even if robots don't mature physically, I've still matured mentally in the three years since I was created as a fourteen-year-old. It doesn't matter if my physical body was only created three years ago. I don't _act_ like a three-year-old, I don't _think_ like a three-year-old, and I don't even come close to _looking_ like a three-year-old. There's nothing _three_ about me," I said. I knew I was talking to myself more than I was to her, but I couldn't stop myself. My fists curled up. "I'm _seventeen_."

"Sheesh, I got it. I wasn't trying to hit a nerve," Midna said. "...You know, your sense of humor hasn't matured very much."

"Because laughing at people's misery like you do is _so_ much better than laughing at toilet humor, right?" I said.

"Okay, it's moving on time," Link said, lifting up the door.

I would've liked to have gone against Link's declaration that the conversation was over, but my attention was diverted elsewhere. Just like when I went through the temple by myself, there was a lizard guy hanging out by the door on the opposite end of the bridge, and it started racing over.

"I already killed that thing last time! Why is it back?!" I said.

Once we were on the bridge and the door was closed behind us, Link grabbed his sword and ran forward to meet the lizard guy halfway, and I was reminded of my dream. I tried to tell myself that there was no way anything about it could have come true—a dagger couldn't go straight through Link's armor, and he couldn't fall off the bridge with its high railings—but I was still worried about everything going wrong.

Link slashed at it four times, and after the fourth strike sent the lizard guy falling to its back, Link jumped up over it and stabbed his sword down right through its chest. Mere seconds had passed from the time of the first slash to the monster's explosive death.

"...You are _way_ too good at this stuff," I said, walking to him. "But seriously, how did it come back?" I was about to say ' _It's not like this is a video game_ ,' but then it hit me that it kind of was, and Link had no idea what respawning in a video game was anyways so that would have meant nothing to him.

"I told you before that evil awakens monsters," he said after we started walking down the rest of the bridge. "There's a strong presence of evil in this temple right now. I know you're gonna say no, but can't you _feel_ it?"

"I feel cold, damp, and slightly freaked out because we're in an underwater temple with lizard monsters, but that's about it."

"I know it was one of the Lizalfos that cut you and all, but I don't think you should be so scared of them. It was probably only a fluke that it got you. They're just big lizards, and they're some of the weakest monsters."

"' _Just big lizards_ ,'" I repeated in a mocking tone. "They're lizards as big as humans that walk on two feet, wield daggers, and have axes on their tails. We don't have _anything_ like that in my world."

Link and I got to the double doors at the end of the bridge, and we each opened the door on the side we were standing on. Ooccoo was walking right past the doors with her son flying by her head.

"...Or anything like them," I added.

At my voice, Ooccoo stopped and turned to me, and I noticed that she was holding my phone in her wings.

"You're back!" she said. "I didn't think I'd see you here again. We're still not done searching for what we came to find. This place is so big and hard to navigate! The only thing we've found is this strange mirror that was buzzing a few hours back..."

"That's not a mirror, it's my... Nevermind what it is. It's mine," I said.

I reached down to grab it from her. The first thing I noticed was that the screen was cracked—so much for it being ' _shatter resistant_ '—and then I noticed that Ooccoo had somehow managed to unlock my phone and open the camera app. No wonder she had thought it was a mirror. Upon noticing that the newest picture looked different from anything I'd ever taken, I opened up my pictures. She had accidentally taken dozens of photos of herself. It might have been cute if it wasn't so creepy.

I closed both of the apps and found that I had twelve missed texts, explaining the buzzing Ooccoo had heard. All of them came up as being sent from a single person in my contacts—Mom.

' _Hi sweetheart. When I gave Mr. Rider my phone to explain everything to you, he left to talk to you privately, but he told me later that you were very upset._ _I didn't get to tell you my whole side of the story._ _I hope you can forgive me for lying to you, but I want you to know that in my heart I was never lying._ _You're not a robot to me, you're my daughter, and I would never purposefully hurt you. I love you more than you'll ever know. Please talk to me when you can. Be safe, Vanna_.'

' _You still haven't answered me. Please let me know that you're okay_.'

' _How are you doing sweetie? I see you haven't read my past messages. I hope you've just been busy and that something bad hasn't happened to you. I'm worried. Text back when you can_.'

' _Or are you ignoring me? I understand that you're upset but that's no reason to worry your mother so much. I think I've got twice the grays I used to have since before you left. I love you and I only want to know that you're safe. You don't have to say much. Just_ _reply_ _'yes' to let me know that you're still alive, okay?_ '

' _I really do believe you're my daughter. Mr. Rider has told me that it's not healthy for me to pretend that you're her, but to me it's not pretending. I believe you have her spirit, that_ _she decided to be reborn in you_ _so that she could be with mommy again. You're my baby girl and I love you._ '

' _This morning I went through old photos of you. You were such a sweet,_ _beautiful_ _baby. The first time you called me Mama, I cried. When Mr. Rider brought you back to me and I heard you call me Mom for this first time in 10 years, I went to my room and cried again. I want to hear your voice. Call me when you're able to._ '

' _Mr. Rider has told me he's nearly done with the devices to bring you home. Please don't_ _b_ _e mad at me anymore when you come back_.'

' _I love you._ '

' _Please answer me_.'

' _Please answer me_.'

' _Please answer me_.'

' _Please answer me_.'

"...What language is that?"

I looked over at Link, still feeling stunned from what I'd read. "English. It's, um, really the same language we're speaking. The letters just look kind of different where I come from." I opened up my pouch and dropped my phone in there, then looked to Ooccoo. "Want in?"

"Yes, please!" she said before she and her son flew inside.

"You look upset from whatever you read," Link said.

"I'm... I don't know how I feel right now," I said.

That wasn't entirely true. There were two things I felt, that I knew I was feeling: shock, and pity. I had been assuming that my ' _mom_ ,' Daina, deserved the same hatred I felt for Mr. Rider because she was just as complicit in misleading me, but now I knew that wasn't the whole story. She wasn't evil—she was a mother whose mismanaged grief over losing her daughter turned into delusion.

And now, Mr. Rider was keeping her in the dark. She really thought that he was going to have Zi bring me home only to drop me off into her arms, when the reality was that Mr. Rider wanted to kill me.

I sighed. "Let's just go."

* * *

With foreknowledge of the rotating staircase and pulley system, it took significantly less time for us to get back to where I had left off than it did for me the first time. I had never gotten to put the key I acquired to use in the room with the strange oversized insect in its seemingly impenetrable water bubble. Link identified it as a Chu Worm—a name which matched with what he had informed me were actually called Chuchus (that I still preferred the name Grape Jellies for)—but he admitted that he had absolutely no idea how to kill it, either, so we hurried to get into the room that had been locked off.

"The Zoras really enjoy their giant circular rooms," I said.

The floor spiraled up around the walls, leaving a gap around the tall platform that stood in the very center of the room. A pulley hung above the platform, which would more than likely need to be pulled, but the gap made it impossible to get to from where we were. My initial thoughts were that we would either have to get something long enough to form a makeshift bridge over to it, or we'd have to ascend the spiraling floor until we would get up high enough to manage to jump over the barrier onto it, but I got the feeling that the answer to our problem would somehow be more absurd.

Our only hurdle was that the side of the floor we were on was a dead end. We'd have to get over to the spiraling floor by climbing down about fifty feet of vines and climbing up another fifty to get to the other side. I was hit with a pang of regret again for not bringing my TPort—it would have made things _so_ much easier if I could have just told it to teleport me fifteen feet in front of me—but I was relieved that I'd at least be getting NEVA back soon enough.

It took an eternity to get down and then all the way back up, and I lost track of how many times I'd started to lose my grip and almost fell, but we made it. After another of eternity walking up the incline and Link killing the few Tektites on it, the floor stopped going up and instead went straight to the side. There was yet another pulley, and a door on a higher path above the floor that we couldn't reach. I thought that perhaps pulling the pulley would have done something to allow us to get into the door. When Link pulled it, the door raised up the wall, and I realized it wasn't actually a door at all; it was a floodgate. Water surged out of the opening and rushed down the floor. We both looked over the barrier, and the water had already gotten to the bottom and started to fill up the gap below.

"So when it's full we'll have to swim over and get the other pulley," I said. That was a much better and more clever alternative than anything I'd thought of.

"Guess we oughta head on down," Link said.

We started to walk back towards the slope, and just as we got there, Link sat down. I was about to ask him what he was doing, but after he scooted forward the tiniest bit, the gushing water made him start sliding down. I quickly followed his lead and slid down after him. I had never been on any sort of water slide before out of irrational fear, but it was hands down the most fun I'd had in weeks. Still not enough to make me not hate the temple, though.

Link was already almost to the pulley by the time I got down to the bottom. Like with the pulley above, a floodgate opened when Link pulled it, allowing water to flow into the room we had come from. I'd previously been curious why there were sections of the floor lower than the rest, but now I realized that they were channels for the water.

After we got out, we attempted to follow the channel, but a gate in the ring-shaped room barred us from going straight forward. Our only option was to go through the room that had had the Lizalfos, and out around the other side. My heart started to beat faster with every step we took towards the door.

"...Oh," I said after Link opened the door.

It wasn't there.

"Were you expecting something different in here?" Link asked.

"When I came in here by myself there was a Lizalfos on the gear, and the gear wasn't spinning," I said.

"Maybe when it fell off when the gear started spinning," he suggested.

"I guess." Whether it simply didn't respawn, or if it did respawn and died without being killed, I was happy that the monster was still gone.

The fact that the gear was spinning made it more nerve-racking to hop onto it and off of it, but we safely got to the other side, where we were able to walk around and continue following the channel. It led back out to the main room, where it simply flowed right off the edge. The water that filled the center of the room looked to be much higher up than it had been before.

"So we filled up the center with more water," Link said. "What now? Go through the other side?"

"I don't think we're done with this side yet, though," I said, pulling out the map. "The lower half of the room with the gear has rooms that I couldn't get to before when it wasn't spinning. There are these things dangling from the bottom of the gear, and now that it's moving we can ride one around to those doors. We should probably head down and see what's back there first."

It was only as we went around and maneuvered the stairs to get to where we wanted that I noticed there was a locked door on the cylindrical structure that held up the staircase. The chains and lock on it were more ornate than the other ones, leading me to conclude that it, somehow, had to be the door that would lead to the boss. It seemed like such an incredibly small area to house the boss—Morpheel, I remembered—and it made me hope that the boss would be small to go with it. Regardless, we currently had no key, and no way to reach the door anyways because of the water level not being high enough.

The first room that we tried to go into only had a key and a gate that we couldn't get to move, so we had to go back and through the second one. Another door past it required the key we'd just gotten, and I couldn't help but groan when Link opened the door. We were going to have to swim completely underwater again through another dark tunnel. While there were a few giant jellyfish like in the tunnel leading inside, and a giant clam that looked very intent on eating us towards the end, we thankfully made it out of the tunnel unharmed in less than a minute.

After we pushed a manhole cover open enough for us to get out of the tunnel, we stood in a large room that we had somewhat been able to see through the gates. It was circular, as I'd come to expect, though right away it was clear that the room was unlike the rest. The walls were covered in a nasty green film, the shallow water was dirty, and it just _smelled_. Towards the middle of the room were two tadpoles the size of small dogs, with glowing red eyes and eerily human thick purple lips. They started racing towards us, but it only took two little jabs from Link's sword for them to explode away.

"Starting to regret saying we should've come back here..." I said.

Something round dropped down suddenly. Upon impact with the ground, it burst open to reveal another one of the tadpoles, and three more followed it. As I looked up, my regret skyrocketed. Hanging on the ceiling was an enormous frog-like creature with dozens of eggs embedded into its back.

As if it knew that it had been seen, it grumbled loudly and let itself fall from the ceiling. The floor shook as it landed, and we were splashed with the nasty water. I heard Link spit and groan, and judging by the expression on his face when I looked over at him, I could only guess that some of it had landed in his mouth. The frog let out another gurgling roar from its puffy lips, and it wiggled its disgustingly gelatinous body, sending all of its babies flying out of its back.

I got my gun out as fast as I could knowing it'd be quicker and easier to shoot them with that than with arrows, and then I helped Link take them out. I felt guilty killing them, not only because they couldn't even hurt us, but because their mother was right there, flopping around the room. With each tadpole I killed, I could only imagine Mr. Rider killing me right in front of Daina. I felt like _I_ was the monster, not any of them.

Countless shots and stabs later, Link and I had killed every last one of the tadpoles. The giant frog wailed and jumped up in the air higher than seemed possible, and I realized that it was going to try to land on us and squish us. Watching as it started to come down and its shadow got bigger, we ran out of the way. It seemed to knock itself out when it flopped down, and Link took advantage of that by slashing at it, but I only stood to the side and watched.

Feeling bad about it made me feel stupid, but I couldn't help it. All the other monsters we had come across tried to kill us from the get-go, and the frog only wanted to kill us after we killed its babies. It was hard for me to see it as the monster it was when its actions were reasonable. What mother _wouldn't_ try to kill the people that killed her babies? Maybe it was the fact that I barely got any sleep, or maybe it was maternal instincts...

' _But I can't even have my own babies_.'

I couldn't believe that it was while watching Link stab a gigantic frog that I thought of that ramification for the first time.

The frog screeching and thrashing around drew me out of my thoughts. It jerked backwards a final time before spitting something out and falling to the ground as a quickly blackening heap. As it exploded, the slime that covered the object it had spit out dissipated into the murky water.

"A clawshot!" Link said excitedly. "I've read about these. It can grab onto things and pull you to places."

He grabbed it and put his left arm into it. The claw on the opposite end of it shot out, staying attached by a metal chain. After going as far as it presumably could, the claw and chain fell down to the ground, and then they were retracted back into the device.

"...Do monsters normally have babies?" I asked.

Link turned and gave me a confused look at my sudden question. "Well, yeah, how else would they get here?"

I shrugged. "You made it seem like monsters just ' _awakened_ ' and showed up out of nowhere."

"They have to be born in the first place to be called back to the earth, 'cause you can't be awakened if you never existed. We just haven't come across any other younger monsters yet," he said. There was a long pause of neither of us knowing what to say. "...Do you feel guilty about killing the little ones?"

I shrugged again, and Link sighed.

"Vanna, they're _monsters_. If we hadn't killed them, then they would have grown up to be just like the one that had them. Imagine _dozens_ of those things, fully grown, infesting this temple. They would've destroyed it. Killing them was necessary."

"I _know_ , but..." I trailed off, running my hands through my hair. I huffed. "I know I'm being ridiculous. I just have a lot of stuff on my mind right now that really isn't helping..."

"Need to talk about it?"

I pursed my lips. Link's offer was more than appreciated—his compassion made me feel all warm and fuzzy, and then even more stupid because the little crush I had on him wouldn't just go away already—but talking to him about everything would mean that I'd have to explain so much. I'd yet to tell him basically anything about my family, and he didn't know the extent to which I wasn't a perfect human replica.

"Once we're done in here."

* * *

 **Fun fact of the day: There are "Chuchus" in 7 Zelda games, while in Twilight Princess, there are only technically "Chus". But I don't give a chuchu and I'm calling them Chuchus in this because Chuchu is adorable.**

 **Ninja:** Yeah, last chapter was fillery, but hopefully this chapter is less so. It's still gonna be awhile before a little puppy makes it in, but he definitely is! I said this to you before but he should show up somewhere around chapter 31 if everything goes according to my plan. As for the whole issue of the twilight, the answer is coming up next time :)

 **Knifeninja55:** Ah, that sucks! Maybe you should email Support if you haven't already... But knowing this site they probably would never respond. I just wanted to say thanks anyways lol.


	23. Light in the Dark

The clawshot was more of an ingenious device than I'd thought it would be from the brief description Link had given me of it. It was only when he showed me how it was properly used that I realized it was probably the closest thing Hyrule had to a teleporter that wasn't Ooccoo or Midna. So long as there was something it could grasp onto within a surprisingly long distance, it could get you there in seconds.

However, utilizing it wasn't nearly as mundane an experience as using teleporters was. Since we had only one, the only way for us to travel together was for me to cling to Link for dear life while he used it. It was terrifying to go flying from place to place, but it was incredibly fun at the same time. It was just the right kind of stupid and minimally risky thing I always yearned to do but never would have been allowed to.

At least, that's how I felt about it until we got to a room in the temple where the only way to get to the other side was for Link to clawshot onto faraway targets on sideways gears that were hanging over a seemingly bottomless pit. There were pillars that he could lower us to beneath the targets, so if we fell once we made it to the targets I knew we'd be fine, but falling while zipping over would mean falling into the abyss and more than likely dying. Using the clawshot no longer seemed slightly dangerous and fun—the room looked dangerous and dangerous alone.

"I don't feel good about this..." I said, frowning.

"It's all right. We're not gonna fall."

If it was only one of us going over it, perhaps I would have agreed with him, but the fact that we had to hold on to each other changed everything. Link never seemed to have trouble picking me up, and I remembered Mr. Rider once telling me about how he built his Synthumans to be as light as possible for ease of transportation, yet I still worried that my extra weight would be a burden on Link over the long gap.

"But... Isn't it harder on you to have to hold on to me?" I said.

"Barely. You don't weigh nothin' to me. I wrangle 500-pound goats, remember?" Link said, smiling and flexing an arm.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, but I wasn't able to hold back a little smile at his display. "I know you're strong and all, but I'm still..."

"Scared of heights?"

"I'm not scared of _heights._ I'm scared of falling into an abyss."

"If you wanna stay back, you can," Link said. "It doesn't look like I'll have to go very far on the map to get the water flowing from this side. It'll only take a few minutes. I can go alone."

The image of Link's dead body in my dream flashed through my mind again.

I couldn't let him go alone. There was no way of knowing what monsters were hiding back there. Proficient fighter or not, he would be safer if he had backup. I could never live with myself if he had to die in real life all because fear held me back.

"No," I said. "I'm going."

Link wrapped his free arm around me tightly and I clung to him while he used the clawshot to get us over part of the abyss and then down to one of the pillars. From there, he tried to clawshot to another target on another gear, but even on the very edge of the pillar with his arm all the way extended, we were too far away to reach it.

"...So, what now? We're just stuck down here forever?" I said.

I knew that wasn't the case, but it seemed like it had to be. As far as I could see, there were no other targets within a reachable distance to get us off the pillar. Link appeared to be thinking the same thing, looking around the room for another one. Suddenly, his face lit up. I looked in the direction he was looking, but I saw nothing except for taller pillars with vines on them, and a ledge up by them that we couldn't reach.

"Here, hold this," Link said, holding out the clawshot towards me. I grabbed it, and he started taking off his baldric.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Gettin' my sword and shield off my back."

"...Any particular reason why you might be doing that?"

He stuffed his baldric, sword and shield attached, into a pouch, then stood in front of me and looked back. "Give me the clawshot back and hop on."

"What was wrong with me clinging to your side?"

Link pointed to the vines on the pillars. "We can clawshot over to the vines to get to that door up there instead of the one down here, but I'll have to hold onto the vines with one hand and use the clawshot with another, and I'll need to climb them some, too. I can't do that holding onto you with one arm the whole time."

"You're _sure_ I'm not—?"

"You're _fine_. Really. Get on."

I told the whining, wimpy little voice in my head to shut up as I got onto Link's back. With my eyes closed, it actually wasn't too bad. It was a lot easier to pretend that I wasn't hanging onto a guy who was hanging onto vines on a pillar above a bottomless pit when I couldn't see the pit at all.

"You fall asleep back there?" Link said.

It was only then that it hit me that he'd been standing still for a few seconds. When I opened my eyes, we were already up on the high ledge next to the door. I apologized and let go of him, feeling embarrassed. Link looked like he thought it was funny.

We went straight to the next door, that, according to the map, would lead to a room similar to the one that we got water flowing into the main room from. Unlike its matching room on the other side of the temple, the gap in the floor was already half-filled with water when we got to it, and sections of the floor that spiraled up the wall had been broken. At first glance, it appeared that the broken floor would completely impede our only way to get up to the floodgate, but the grates that scattered the walls looked like they would serve as targets to get over the gaps with.

I was going to ask Link if he would prefer me to actually stay back this time, since it seemed pointless for him to go through the trouble of grabbing me every time he needed to use the clawshot when he probably wouldn't need my help anyways, but before I could, he was already wrapping an arm around me and aiming the clawshot at a target across the way. By then, I figured that I might as well go up with him since he apparently didn't really mind holding me, and besides that, I'd get another chance to slide down once the floodgate was open. Getting to go flying from place to place with the clawshot and sliding down the floors were the only enjoyable things about the temple, and I wanted to jump at any chance I could get to do something to shake off the stress that was eating me up.

Upon coming across a Rhinadillo on our way up the incline—the first one I'd encountered since my solo foray into the temple—Link realized that he could use the clawshot to snatch its holed armor right off its back, leaving it vulnerable and easy for him to kill.

"Guessin' you don't know what those things are, either," Link said, intending to continue carrying through on the promise he made back in the mines to tell me about the monsters we would come across. "They're called—"

"Rhinadillos," I said.

"Rhinadillos?" he repeated. I smiled at his puzzled expression over the name I'd given them. "That's not what they're called here. They're Helmasaurs. Do you have them in your world? Like the Dodongos, or al-gators, whatever you called 'em?"

" _Alligators_ ," I sounded out. "And, no, not completely. They look kind of like a cross of animals in my world called rhinos and armadillos, so I started calling them Rhinadillos when I saw them in here last time since I didn't know their real names. Maybe you should have let me borrow the monster encyclopedia you apparently have instead of that kid's book about robots."

"It's actually called _The Great Hyrulian Guide to Monsters_ ," Link said before picking me up again and taking us over a gap. "You can read it next time we're at my house."

What followed us opening the floodgate at the top of the room was similar to what had happened with the previous one, only the slide back down was unfortunately much shorter because of the broken floor. With the additional water flowing down the channels to the main room, all we had left to do was find the key to let us into the boss room. Looking at the map, it appeared that the only place we hadn't been yet was a floor below us through the door we hadn't previously been able to reach from the gear room.

The flowing water, much like on the other side of the temple, made the hanging gears start spinning. It was clear that we'd be able to use that to our advantage to get over to the door, but we had to get to a lower section of the room to be able to clawshot to the gears in the first place, which meant going all the way back to the main room and into the gear room from the lower floor again. Hanging from the targets on the gears as they spun us towards the door was even more terrifying than hanging onto Link while he climbed the vines, and it was made even worse by how frustratingly slow the gears spun.

I pulled out the map when we got into the room. The lackluster representation of the dungeon's layout made it appear as though the room would be a normal winding maze, giving no indication at all that majority of the room was actually flooded. There was no way to navigate through it above water.

"...You know what? I think you'll be fine to go on your own here," I said. "I'd probably only be putting you in more danger anyways..."

"Why do you think you'd be putting me in more danger?" Link asked.

"Link. When you stitched up my leg, you could kind of see inside it, right? You saw that my bones are metal, didn't you?" I said. He nodded. "And you know that there have been jellyfish here that generate a lot of electricity..."

A moment passed before he mouthed an ' _Oh_.' "You're worried that I'll get shocked because of you?"

"Yeah. And..." I crossed my arms, rubbing each one with the opposite hand. "I'm pretty sure it wouldn't kill me, but I'd rather not keep on inhaling freezing water if I don't have to. I swear, it keeps getting colder the more time we spend in here."

Link nodded again and pulled his face mask back up over his cheeks and nose that had long since turned pink from the cold. "I'll try to get back fast as I can so we can get out of here."

He jumped into the water and started swimming down. The further he swam the less light the glowing pendant he wore could make it above the water, leaving me in the dark. Before it could get pitch black, I reached into my pouch and retrieved both my lantern and my phone. Initially, I only wanted to use my phone for more light, but as soon as it was in my hand, I couldn't stop myself from going back to the messages Daina sent me. I read through them all again, pondering if I should respond to her while I still had the chance. Multiple times I typed up a response, only to erase it all and stare at the empty box again. There was so much to say, so much that I didn't know _how_ to say, but right then, there was one thing to say that mattered more than anything else.

' _Mr. Rider is going to kill me._ _You need to s_ _top him._ '

Almost as soon as I hit send, I saw that she had read it. I waited for a response—a promise that she would stop him, a push for further clarification, _anything_ —but I could see that she wasn't even typing. The longer I went with no response, the more I regretted saying anything at all. What if she was confronting Mr. Rider right at that moment, a universe away where I could do nothing?

I couldn't handle waiting idly for long. Leaving my phone on the ground, I got up and started running in place to try to distract myself and warm myself up. I couldn't stop myself from peeking back over towards my phone every few seconds, and as more time passed, I began to look into the water to see if Link was on his way back yet. Eventually, I started to worry more about Link than Daina. There were a lot of reasons for Daina not to reply quickly, but her dying was more than likely not among them, and death was a frighteningly possible reason that Link was taking so long.

Feeling about as warmed up as I thought I could be with wet clothes and hair, I stopped running and sat down at the edge of the water. After a few more minutes with no sign of Link, I told myself that I would wait for just one more before going after him, and I started to count down the seconds.

Eleven seconds before I would have jumped in, I saw a blue glow appear deep in the water, and my fears started to wash away as it got closer and brighter. However, when Link's arms came into view as he scrambled to get out of the water, I saw that I had been right to worry. The exposed parts of his arms around his elbows were littered with dozens of wounds in crescent formations, and blood was seeping out of each puncture.

"What happened?!" I asked, even though it was quite obvious.

He pulled his facemask down under his chin. "Went the wrong way. Backwards. The room with the key..." He reached into his pouch and pulled out a large key that looked more like a mace than anything. "...There were Skullfish in there... And I went in the way I was supposed to leave it first, and couldn't reach it, so I had to all the way back, and in the room from a different way, and then leave the way I came the first time again. The Skullfish attacked me both times I was in the room with them."

"Link, I'm almost positive you need stitches, and I don't think I can stitch. We need to get out of here now and find someone—"

"It's okay," he said, reaching back into his pouch again. "I managed to get most of the Skullfish off me before they could bite too deep."

"No, it's not! Look at how many cuts you have and how much they're bleeding!"

"It's _okay_." His brought his arm back around, and he was holding a bottle filled with blue liquid. "I got a potion while I was in Castle Town. One of the strongest kinds out there."

Link pulled the cork out and drank half of the bottle in one go. I pursed my lips, waiting for him to say something. With all the blood covering his arms, I couldn't tell where all the cuts were anymore, so I had no way of knowing whether the potion was actually doing anything or not. My instincts told me no, that it was impossible for some weird blue drink to heal him, even though I had witnessed something as simple as water healing scratches on Beth's arm. Despite all I'd seen, the line on what I was willing to believe in sat firmly before a drink with the ability to heal dozens of cuts.

He leaned over and dipped his arms into the water, which became clouded with his blood right away; when he pulled his arms back out, there were only red lines where there had been open wounds. I grabbed one of his arms, gently twisting it to see that every last wound had closed.

The line was pushed back a little bit further.

"How does anyone in this world die with medicine like that?!" I said.

"Potions can't heal everything, even the stronger ones. They're good for cuts that don't go too deep, but they can't always cure illnesses or help severe injuries." Link put the bottle away, grabbed the key, and stood up. "Ready to go?"

I considered asking him if he'd be able to fight the boss so soon after getting injured, but I felt that he would insist he was fine even if he wasn't. With a sigh, I gathered my things, and we left the room together.

Sooner than I'd have liked, we were standing before the final room under the staircase, and Link was unlocking the door. I held my breath as he pushed up the door, expecting to see the boss right there in the small room, but there was nothing in the room at all except for lit sconces on the wall and a hole in the ground. I cautiously walked in ahead of Link and looked down into the hole. Past a point, it became so dark that it was impossible to see how much further down it went. I remembered how the map had large, circular 'basement' floors, floors that Link and I definitely hadn't been to yet, and I found myself wishing that the boss had merely been trapped in the small room.

I saw Link moving out of the corner of my eye, and when I fully looked over at him, I saw that he was taking off the necklace. Once he had it off, he held it over the hole and then dropped it in. After about ten seconds of falling, a _plop_ echoed up the hole, and its descent slowed.

"...Ladies first?" Link said.

"Thanks for being such a gentleman, but hell no. We're going at the same time. On three?"

Link nodded and started counting. I had half a mind to not jump on three, and it seemed that he figured as much, because at the last second he grabbed my hand and pulled me down with him.

Landing in the water was like being slapped over every inch of your body all at once. The water was impossibly cold, like it should have been ice, and I was shivering immediately. I was mindblown at how little the temperature looked to affect Link. Though I knew without a doubt that his face still had to be red under his mask, he dove right on down to grab the necklace, not even gasping or letting out a swear when he landed like I did. I could hardly stand the much less cold water above when I had the wetsuit, but it was clearly working wonders for him.

When I looked down into the water, Link was struggling to get the necklace back over his head because of his helmet and long hat, and he ended up fastening it to his baldric instead. He motioned for me to follow him with his hand before starting to swim down. Knowing how much easier they made things, I put on the iron boots, and I grabbed onto Link to drag him down with me.

As we got closer to the bottom of the chamber, something came into view. A large, see-through tentacle was protruding out of the sand and swaying around. The sight of it was reassuring in a way I wasn't expecting. If that thing was Morpheel, then I was reasonably confident that Link and I could defeat it easily. It was just some floppy tentacle, after all.

Some fifteen feet away from the tentacle, I landed on the sand, and it seemed to respond to my presence. It started to sway erratically, and a giant eyeball floated up inside the tentacle and then went back down to disappear under the sand. And then another tentacle came out. And another. And another. And then four more, and then the mouth of the monster erupted out of the sand, opening and exposing its multiple sets of sharp teeth.

I really, _really_ needed to stop getting my hopes up.

" _Gffmhuhbooengeb_ _e_ _h!_ "

I turned my head to Link, eyebrows drawn together. He repeated the same garbled, muffled mess he'd just said again with more force, but I still couldn't understand him. The third time he repeated it, much slower and with more emphasis on each word, I figured out what he was saying— _give me the boots and get back_. As I slipped out of the boots, I felt impressed that the Zora had been able to understand me so easily before when I'd talked to them while wearing the outfit. Deciding to trust that he would be okay by himself, I left the boots on the ground for him and swam closer to a giant pillar that I could barely make out along the perimeter of the chamber.

From where I was, I couldn't see too much. The chamber was too large and it was just too dark for the glowing pendant to extend its light very far. Most of what I saw in front of me were silhouettes and mere suggestions of what was there, but they were enough for me to make out what was going on.

I could see that I couldn't have been able to help much even if I wanted to. Link had to use the clawshot to seize the eyeball from whichever tentacle it was in, and he had to stab it before the eyeball could escape back into the mouth only to float through the tentacles again. Each time the process repeated, I became less fearful of Morpheel.

It might have had sharp teeth, but besides moving its eyeball around, it didn't really do much—until it finally did, and it did it so fast I couldn't wrap my head around it at first. One of the tentacles swooped down to Link, wrapped around him, and threw him into its mouth. I was left reeling in the darkness, staring at where I knew Morpheel was and expecting to see the glowing pendant bring light back to the chamber as proof that I had misidentified what happened.

After minutes in the darkness, it dawned on me that what I had seen was real. Morpheel put Link in its mouth and he hadn't come back out. He _wasn't_ coming back out. I had watched Link be eaten alive.

I yelled for Midna, but my voice didn't carry far with all the water in my system. She didn't answer me. I attempted to swim back up to the hole we fell in from as fast as I could to get away from Morpheel, with my only guide being the tiny amount of light that was able to make it down to the narrow top of the chamber. When my head surfaced and I had coughed out most of the water, I yelled for her again, but all I heard in return was my voice echoing back to me.

Panicking, I clawed at the walls surrounding me, trying to find some fingerholds. I needed to get out of the water before Morpheel could come up and eat me, too. There was no point in staying and attempting to fight it by myself when I couldn't see it and I didn't have the items I needed to beat it. It was impossible. And, it seemed, it was just as impossible to climb out, because there was absolutely nothing for me grasp onto.

I struggled pointlessly for another minute after I'd come to my conclusion that there was no way out until I remembered that I had Ooccoo and Ooccoo Jr. in my pouch. As I reached down to pull my pouch off my belt, my hand brushed against something next to me, and I let out a scream. I went back to clawing at the walls to try to get out, only stopping when I heard something surface and felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Where are you trying to go?"

I turned, and right there was Link. It was too dark to see much detail—he apparently didn't have the pendant on him anymore—but from what I could see, he looked as fine as ever.

All the feelings I had felt earlier when I had wrongly assumed Link had died came flooding back to me, only with even more confusion this time. I knew with certainty that I hadn't merely dreamt that he had been eaten, unless _everything_ had been a dream (the more time I spent in Hyrule, the more I felt like that was a possibility). Whatever the case, I knew what I saw, and what I saw was him being eaten, so how was he right there in front of me?

"You—I thought—you—it _ate_ you!" I said.

"It only put me in its mouth and then spit me back out. I lost the necklace when I was in it, but everything's fine," Link said. "Are you all right?"

"Uh, no, not really, and I have no idea how you think everything's _fine_. You lost the necklace, so what are we supposed to do now?"

"I'll go back down and finish fighting it."

"But _h_ _ow?_ It's pitch black down there!"

Even in the darkness, I could still see how he was just as confused as I was. "What do you mean? It's not _that_ dark."

I looked down beneath us to confirm that I wasn't going crazy. It was definitely pitch black. "Yes, it is! I can't see anything past here at all!"

"Well, I can, and..." Link looked down, and his eyes widened. "It's coming out of the sand. Stay here!"

With that, he disappeared under the water, leaving me alone again. I squinted my eyes down into the darkness, trying as hard as I could to see something, but I could see nothing at all, not even the vaguest shape of his body or of Morpheel. I didn't understand how anyone, much less somebody that couldn't even see clearly far away, would be able to see down there without some sort of night vision goggles. Perhaps it was a Hylian thing.

Though I could see nothing of their fight, I knew that something was happening with Morpheel and Link by how the water waved. After several minutes of waves smashing me against the wall, the water level started to go down abruptly, taking me with it. As my feet landed on the sand with most of the water apparently gone, I heard the familiar exploding sound of a defeated monster, and the chamber filled with blue-green light. The glowing pendant dropped into the sand halfway between where I was and where Link was, and the black shard-like remains of the monster came together to form the final Fused Shadow above it. I noticed it had a similar shape to the headdress, or whatever it was, that Midna always kept on.

Link and I walked towards the Fused Shadow, and I called for Midna on the way to it. She slowly rose from my shadow, stretching and rubbing at her eye before gasping.

"There it is!" Midna said. She quickly floated over to it and snatched it up with her hand-hair, and she was smiling when Link and I caught up to her. "Now, don't resent me for all I've put you two through. I _need_ this thing! We have to do something about Zant, and I can prove his power is false using these! I'm sorry for dragging you two all over the place with me..."

I narrowed my eyes. She wasn't sorry at all. "So, are your powers back now because you have all three?" I asked.

Midna huffed and put her hands on her hips. "I know what you're really asking, but Zant's more important right now than you getting your bracelet back."

"But you told me—!"

"I told you I'd get your bracelet back if you'd help me get my powers back," she cut me off. "I never said that the Fused Shadows _were_ my powers—just that they'd help me get them back. Having all the Fused Shadows isn't all I need."

"So what do you need now?"

"To get rid of Zant, obviously." She flicked her wrist to the ground and a portal appeared. "We should go..."

Link reached down to grab the necklace, and when he stood up, he held it out to me. "You should keep this. Think you need it more than I do."

"Is the ability to see in the dark a Hylian thing?" I asked as I took it from him and clasped it around my neck.

"No, seeing in the dark isn't a Hylian thing. It really wasn't even pitch black, Vanna. Maybe you just have worse vision than you think."

I humphed. It had to be a Hylian thing, and he simply didn't know that it was because he had never known what it was like to _not_ be able to see in the dark. "Yeah, sure."

I walked onto the portal, ready to finally get out of that cursed temple once and for all, and Link followed after. Like the previous two times Midna had warped us, the feeling of being split apart and coming back together left my head hurting when we appeared outside of the temple. I had never been inside of the spacious cavern she warped us to, but I could tell by looking at it that it housed one of the Spirit Springs. Down a cliff just in front of us was sparkling clear water, and the stalactites above us featured the same swirling engraved designs that rocks around the other springs had. There was no exit from the cavern the way we were facing, so Link and I turned around at the same time.

Standing right there in front of us was somebody I had never seen before, and even though I didn't know who he was, the sight of him struck fear into me. Before I was able to take in much of his appearance besides the fact that it terrified me, Link's arm shot out in front of me and pushed me back away from the man.

The gesture might have been appreciated if I hadn't been standing right on the ledge.

I fell back into the water, and by the time I surfaced, the water was glowing such a bright white that it hurt to look at. I heard the water moving behind me, and with my eyes squinted, I turned to see what it was. It emerged as I looked back, and for just a second, I locked eyes with an enormous, shining snake—and in that second, I knew without being told that it was a Light Spirit.

It rose up high above me, to the point where I could no longer see its face even with my head tilted back all the way, but I still stared at it in awe. Even with how high it stretched, it seemed that most of its body was still in the depths of the spring.

Suddenly, it lurched backwards violently, hitting its head against the wall behind it. Its body faded away until all that was left was the glowing sphere it had held in its mouth, and then that plunged down into the spring. The blinding light of the water faded like the Light Spirit did, and the cavern became bathed in a soft yellow. Small black squares appeared and began to drift up through the air, eerily similar to the black squares that drifted up from the portals Midna created.

" _Zant!_ " I heard Midna yell.

Midna screamed, and when I looked up, there was someone small floating above the spring with both of her arms up as if she was hanging from them. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was Midna; I was only seeing her with clarity unlike I ever had before. She wasn't some ill-defined shadowy shape any longer. She had ginger hair slightly lighter than my own with ends that faded into blue, and her body was a mix of black and a nearly-white blue with glowing cyan markings over her limbs and ears. Seeing her as a shadow, I had never thought too much about how odd she looked—being a literal shadow was odd enough to make everything else not as weird in comparison—but now it struck me how freakishly off she was proportionately.

Looking up at her and thinking of how odd it was to see her not as a shadow, I remembered something she had said to me after we got out of the Forest Temple. She had explained that when she was in the twilight, she became her not-shadow self, and that Link was granted protection from the twilight because he was the Chosen Hero, but most importantly, she said that I would turn into a spirit in the twilight and not be able to see either of them. We had to be in the twilight—so why could I see her just fine?

The three Fused Shadows we had collected and the headdress she wore, which I could clearly identify as another piece now, shot away from her, and Midna screamed again and struggled to move. A voice I hadn't heard before began to speak, and it took me a moment of hearing him for it to kick in that he wasn't speaking English, or any language I had ever heard before at all. Midna yelled something back in the weird, disjointed language.

With how caught up they became in their conflict, I realized that it was a perfect time for me to get away, and I swam out of the water as quickly as I could. I looked up at the ledge Link and I had been standing on before, and I could see Zant standing there, but Link seemed to be gone. I slowly and stealthily walked up along the incline around the cavern, hoping that I could find Link and sneak out with him without being caught by Zant.

When I got up the incline, I saw that there was something laying where Link had been standing, but it wasn't him. It was a wolf with a strange coat and a manacle around one of his ankles. Link was nowhere to be seen in the cavern. I couldn't see if he was past the dark tunnel that likely led outside, but figuring that he had to be, I slowly backed my way towards it, keeping an eye on Zant.

Before I could manage to get out of the cavern, Midna was sent flying forwards and landed on the ground beneath me, and Zant turned to face us. He yelled at Midna more, seemingly not caring that I was standing there, and a glowing red sphere materialized in front of him. The wolf got to his feet and jumped at it, but the sphere exploded and made him fly back towards me like Midna did. He fell to the ground unconscious, with something black and orange sticking out of the center of his head. The object sunk into his head until it was completely inside him, and Midna looked over him with worry. I didn't understand why Midna cared about the wolf, until I saw finally noticed his paw. There was a dark gray patch on the back of his left paw, a triangle made up of three smaller triangles, just like the birthmark Link had on the back of his left hand.

It all came to me at once. The shape on his paw that was identical to Link's birthmark, the blue earrings he wore that were identical to the ones Link wore, his eyes that were the same shade of blue as Link's, the green hue of the fur on the wolf's back—the wolf _was_ Link.

"Vanna, don't move," Midna whispered.

Midna was jerked back towards Zant, and I stayed where I was. Zant whispered to Midna for a minute, but she was able to break away from him and come back to me and Link. She was only with us for a moment before Zant yelled at her again, and she was lifted and sent back over above the spring while screaming. Zant turned to the spring and lifted an arm, and with his motion the twilight was dispelled and the Light Spirit emerged once more.

All I could see went white, and all I could hear was Midna screaming.

* * *

 **Didn't mean to take so long! I felt like I was on a roll with writing this, but then life punched me in the face and finishing this chapter ended up on the back burner for way longer than I wanted it to. Thanks to those of you who always stick around through my awful schedule (if it can even be called a schedule)!**


	24. Desperate Hour

When the light faded, I was out in a field in the heavy rain with Link and Midna, a ways behind a bridge that lead to what I assumed was Castle Town by its close proximity to the castle. Despite us not appearing to be in the twilight anymore, Link was still a wolf, and Midna was still not a shadow, though she didn't look quite the same as she did in the twilight. Her colors were practically inverted, with the previously light blue parts now being dark blue and the previously black parts of her now being white, and her orange hair had turned white as well. She was laying sprawled out on the ground, eyes half-closed, and panting with every breath.

As Link came to, he looked down at his paws with shock evident on his face. He looked up into my eyes, and I was filled with almost the same sort of awestruck feeling I had when I locked eyes with the Light Spirit. It was crazy to believe that the wolf was Link, yet entirely impossible to deny while looking into those blue eyes. They were undoubtedly his, wolf or not.

"Link." Saying his name, for some reason or another, made it feel all the more real, and it felt even more real when he let out a whine and nodded.

Midna whispered something, but I couldn't make out what she said over the sound of the rain, so I got down and put my ear close to her mouth. "Hurry... To the ... castle... To Zelda..."

"She says we need to take her to Zelda," I said, sitting up and looking at Link.

He nodded again and started towards the bridge, looking back at me as he did. I carefully picked Midna up—though her size made it clear, I was shocked at how little she weighed regardless, and that only helped make her seem frailer—and ran behind Link. We were bursting through the double doors to the town in no time.

Luckily, nobody seemed to want to be outside with the weather and what time of night it was, so there was no one to be fearful of a wolf in their town or to be curious about me running behind it while holding a strange imp creature. I was following Link faithfully through the streets until I realized that he was taking us in the opposite direction of the castle.

"The castle is that way!" I yelled after him. "Where are you going?!"

He barked several times, and kept running the same way. I wondered if he didn't realize that I couldn't understand him. I continued to follow him regardless, since he was apparently confident in where he was going. We went down street after winding street until we came to a slim alleyway to what looked to be a dead end at first. After going down a small flight of stairs and turning, I saw a door with a sign next to it. It took me a second to decode the sign as _Telma's Bar_. Link stopped outside the door and sat down, motioning with his head for me to go inside.

I was about to ask Link why he took me to her bar instead of to the castle, but then I remembered how Telma told us back in Kakariko that there was a passageway to the castle from inside the bar.

"But, how am I supposed to find Zelda when I've never stepped foot inside the castle in my life? You need to come with me," I said. Link whined at me, and I groaned. "I don't speak dog!"

He stood up and used his snout to nudge me towards the door.

"Vanna..." Midna whispered. "Just ... go, without him... I'll ... help you find Zelda..."

I frowned and looked down at Link. He nodded again. With a sigh, I positioned Midna so I could safely hold her with one arm, and I opened the door.

The few people inside the bar were either sitting or standing around one table in the back—and one of them, one who wasn't even facing me, made me freeze. He stuck out like a sore thumb, standing at least a full head over everyone else, wearing clothes like no one else wore, dark hair uniquely spiked. I couldn't see his face, but I didn't need to.

For just a second, I was filled with the instinctual urge to run to him and hug him and tell him all about everything that had happened like I would have done prior to coming to Hyrule.

And then it hit me that things weren't like they used to be anymore, and I nearly slammed the door and ran back around the corner, my heart pounding heavily.

Four more days. I was supposed to have four more days before having to worry about him.

Link rounded the corner, making a noise that sounded like the wolf equivalent of ' _Huh?_ ' and looking up at me curiously.

"Zi is in there," I whispered, as if Zi could somehow hear me from where I was. "Link, I can't—we need to find some other way into the castle!"

Link turned his head, and then walked back around the corner. I poked my head out just enough to see what he was doing. A fluffy white cat jumped from a window on the second floor and down some crates that were stacked up against the wall. It meowed at Link repeatedly as it got down to the ground. When it was finishing meowing, Link made noises at it. The cat looked over at me, and I brought my head back around.

"I think Link is figuring something out," I whispered to Midna. "We'll get you to Zelda, okay?"

Midna made the slightest movement to nod her head. She looked like she was getting worse by the second; her skin was becoming whiter and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. I felt racked with guilt for being unable to bring her inside the bar. As much as I had hated her for what she put me through, her actions had inadvertently saved my life, and I found myself scared at the idea of not being able to save hers.

After making noises at each other for a minute, Link and the cat came over to stand in front of me. The cat jumped up on Link's back and laid down on him for a few seconds before it jumped off, and they both looked up at me expectantly. I stared at them blankly, unsure what they wanted me to make of their display. Link stretched up to tap Midna with his nose.

"You... You want me to lay Midna down on your back?" I said.

Link nodded. I cautiously laid Midna on her stomach on his back, and when I let go, her little hands grabbed fistfuls of his fur like they were her lifeline. With Midna on his back, Link and the cat walked back towards the bar, and I trailed behind them. Link jumped up the crates that led to the window, and I was starting to climb up after him when he stopped and shook his head at me.

"You don't want me to go with you?" I asked. He shook his head. "Is that no, as in _no, you don't want_ _me_ _to go with you_ , or _no, you_ do _want me to go with you?_ Er—just nod if I should follow you and shake your head if I shouldn't."

He shook his head again.

"Okay," I said slowly. "Where should I go while you're gone?"

Link barked towards the cat, and it purred back. The cat walked to the bottom of the stairs and turned to look at me while wagging its tail towards itself.

"Is it asking me to follow it?" I asked Link, and I received another nod in return.

I heard the creak of a door opening, and Link quickly jumped through the window at the sound. I tried to hide behind the crates out of fear that it might have been Zi coming out of the bar, but the person who opened the door saw me before I could hide. The moment I saw that it wasn't Zi, I felt relieved, but that relief was quickly taken over by confusion as I realized that I recognized the person's face. It was a face I had never expected to see in Hyrule at all; Bax, one of my few close friends from home.

But as soon as I recognized him, I recognized, too, that almost everything about him was slightly off. His hair was straighter, eyes more blue, face more chiseled and mature, donned in an outfit I knew Bax would never touch even in an alternate world with a questionable fashion sense, and to top it off, his ears were elongated and ended in a point. Looking at him felt like looking at badly-made realistic robots—he was _so_ close to being a perfect replica of Bax, but there was just enough wrong with his appearance to put me on edge.

"What are you doing out here in this pouring rain? Why don't you come inside the bar?" he asked me. His voice was even more wrong than his face, with a completely different timbre and an English accent.

"I can't—" I stopped abruptly, not knowing what to say.

"Well, you can't stay out here in the rain, can you? You don't want to catch a cold."

I stood there with my mouth slightly ajar, trying to think of how I could explain to him that there was somebody inside the bar that wanted to kidnap me and hand me off to his dad to kill me without sounding like a complete lunatic.

"You need to come inside, too, Louise!" he said. He walked out and grabbed the cat, giving her a gentle scolding for getting outside, and on the way back he placed a hand on my shoulder. "Come on, let's hurry and get you inside to dry off."

"There's a guy in there that I'm scared to see," I suddenly blurted out.

"Who? The tall fellow? He does look a bit strange, but I promise you have no reason to be scared. Should he try to hurt anyone in the bar, trust me, Telma will have him pay for it dearly."

I hesitantly nodded, and we started towards the door together. Part of me wanted to turn and run out of the town, but more of me agreed with the man. Zi wouldn't stay in the bar forever. It probably would be safer to be with Zi and several other people than it would be for me to run into him while I was roaming the empty streets of the town. As long as other people were around, they could stop him from trying anything.

As the door shut behind us, Zi looked at us. His eyes lit up and he smiled at me, and I wished for nothing more than to be able to smile back at him. He turned and started walking towards me. When I noticed that he was wearing one NEVA on each of his wrists, I reached back and grabbed the doorknob, ready to book it out of there.

Zi came to a stop, and his smile fell. He took off both NEVAs and threw them on the nearest table, and started again on his way towards me, arms open.

"...You two know each other?" the Bax lookalike said, eyes darting back and forth from me to Zi.

"She's the girl I was talking about," Zi said, coming to a stop in front of us.

"Oh. I... I suppose I'll let you two have your reunion alone, then. I'll go fetch you a towel from the back, if you'll excuse me."

He walked away with his head down, leaving me and Zi alone. I looked up at him nervously, wondering if I should have run when I had the chance instead of relying on strangers to keep me safe.

"Hug," Zi said.

I didn't respond.

He sighed. "Vanna, I don't even have the NEVAs on me right now. I just want to talk to you. And also get a hug, 'cause I haven't had one in three weeks."

I bit on the inside of my bottom lip, contemplating giving in to temptation. Zi pouted, and tucked his head down and tried to give me puppy dog eyes. He knew what he was doing; he knew that I could never resist him when he did that.

I hugged him tightly, and sighed as he returned the gesture. For the first time since I'd left for Lakebed Temple with Link, I was warm, and comfortable, even with that nagging thought at the back of my head warning me to be cautious of letting my guard down too much.

"How long have you been standing out in the rain? You're soaking wet and _freezing_ , Van."

"I'm well aware," I mumbled into his chest.

We stayed in our embrace until I heard footsteps come up to us. I opened my eyes and saw Bax's doppelganger standing next to us awkwardly, two dark red towels in his hands. I let go of Zi then, leaving his clothes wet where I had been pressed against him, and I grabbed a towel from the man.

"I'm leaving for my home now. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask Telma. She's got more towels, or more of whatever you might need here, since her friends are 'round so often. You'll need money for food or drinks, however." He glanced up at Zi for just a second, then looked back at me. "...Don't be afraid to ask for help."

"Before you go—I didn't get your name," I said.

"Shad."

I repeated it back to him, and he gave a wary smile before leaving with the other towel held above his head to protect him from the rain.

"...He seems to have mispronounced _Bax_ ," Zi said. I felt validated knowing that I wasn't alone in seeing the eerie resemblance. "Seriously. That dude looks like an avatar Bax would make based on himself in a shitty RPG."

I couldn't help the small laugh that came out from his apt comparison. Zi smiled at me, but I noticed there was a hint of sadness in it, as if my laughter was a bittersweet thing.

Considering what he was going to do, I supposed it was. If he had his way, it would be the final time he would ever hear me laugh.

His smile fell again when mine did. "We should sit down and talk," he said, the playfulness in his voice gone.

I thought about running away again, but he grabbed my hand and walked me towards the table furthest away from everyone else in the bar. It was the smallest one available, with only two seats on opposite sides. I looked over to Telma as I sat down, and she smiled and waved. I gave a short wave back, and then wrapped the towel around my shoulders.

Zi turned to see who I waved at, then turned back to me. "You've met her already?"

I nodded. "Guess you have, too?"

"Just did for the first time earlier."

I pondered whether or not I should say what I wanted to say from the second I first saw him in the bar. I wasn't able to hold myself back for long. "Why are you here? I was supposed to have until the 24th. Today's the 20th."

"Think it's technically the 21st now," he said. I rolled my eyes. "Dad finished making the NEVAs earlier than he thought he would. I got here on the 19th. Since I did some research on the game, I knew you'd come to the bar sooner or later."

"Wait..." I stopped, thinking through the question that popped up in my head and looking for an answer. When I couldn't find one, I asked Zi, "Why did you come on the 19th?"

"Uh, what? I told you, my dad finished earl—"

"No, I mean—why didn't you time travel back to September 1st, the first day I got here, instead of waiting around for me to run into you?"

"I tried, but I couldn't. My dad and I have this ... hypothesis, that Hyrule and our world are kind of running parallel to each other, and NEVA can't breach that. I did some more testing with NEVA before coming to find you, and it worked fine taking me to different times and places in our world. But once you try to come here, it's like it locks up and makes you go to the time that matches up with our world. It was September 1st in our world when you left, and it took you to September 1st here, and when I left on September 19th, it took me to September 19th here, too."

That certainly explained a lot. I still had questions, though, despite my gratefulness for the answer I'd already been given. "Why didn't you travel back to September 1st in our world, and then come here?"

"Because then I would have crossed my own timeline, and there's too much potential for things to go wrong with doing that. The universe might not be able to handle two of me at any one given time."

"I don't blame it," I said. "I couldn't."

He laughed, and it was my turn to give him a bittersweet smile. I'd missed being able to joke around with him.

"...Okay, so, why didn't you just travel back to September 1st after you got here on the 19th?" I asked.

"Still timelines. You already told me that I didn't show up then." He paused. "Kinda sounds like you wish I would have... You know. Brought you home earlier."

My jaw clenched. "No. I was just curious why you didn't, since you're apparently so set on doing it."

He pursed his lips and averted his eyes. I looked away too, and I reached up and grabbed the pendant hanging against my chest, savoring the feeling of water swirling inside it like it was a stress reliever. It was still glowing faintly in the dimly-lit bar.

"...That's from the Zora Armor, right?" Zi said.

I nodded, but I still didn't make eye contact with him.

"...Where's Link?" he asked.

I shrugged. "How's school been?"

"It's ... all right. Same old."

He sounded bored, like this wasn't what he wanted to be talking about. I couldn't blame him; after all, I didn't want to talk about the things that he wanted to talk about. Then again, what I wanted to talk about didn't involve a plan that would end with someone's murder.

"Has anyone noticed that I've been gone aside from Bax, Maddie, and Nessa?" I asked. My friends had texted me a few times early on, but aside from telling them not to worry about me, I hadn't spoken to them. I'd been unsure of what to tell them, knowing Mr. Rider wouldn't want me talking about NEVA to people who weren't in on its existence.

"You're the best friend of the most popular boy in school and you haven't been with me lately. Of course people noticed you've been gone. I've been telling them you're with your grandparents in Ireland."

"I'm your best friend, but you want to hand me off to your dad for him to kill me," I said under my breath.

He frowned. "Vanna, I don't _want_ to."

"Then don't," I whispered. "Please, please, _don't_."

"I have to."

" _Why?!_ " I yelled.

The voices in the back of the bar went silent, and I saw people there look at me out of my peripheral, but I couldn't bring myself to look at them directly. I shrunk down into my seat.

Zi sighed again, and he spoke to me softly. "Vanna, this is going to happen no matter what I do. If I don't bring you home, my dad will get someone else to find you—and that person's not going to be _nearly_ as nice to you as I am. And my dad will be absolutely _furious_ with me. All my life he's promised me that I'm going to inherit Ridertech when he retires, that I'll inherit all his fortune when he dies, but he threatened to take all of that away from me and kick me out on my ass if I didn't help him find you. And I knew that he wouldn't have let me see you one last time if I hadn't helped him... So I figured I may as well get to spend a little while longer with you and not have my life plans ruined."

"What about _my_ life plans?" I said, squeezing the pendant so hard that I wouldn't have been surprised if I broke it.

"What plans? The plans that were doomed from the start?"

I was going to yell at him again, but I stopped myself before I started.

He was right. My plans had been doomed from the start. I never truly had a chance at anything. The truth didn't just destroy everything I knew about who I was—it destroyed everything I wanted long before I even knew that it did.

I crossed my arms and looked away from him, tears clouding my eyes. "You're still not taking me back," I said through my teeth.

"Would you prefer to be tracked down and brought to my dad by someone you don't know?" he said.

"Wouldn't hurt as much to be betrayed by someone I don't care about," I said quietly. I squeezed my eyes shut after I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

"Vanna..."

I shook my head and turned in my seat so that I was facing the wall, and I buried my head in my hands. I expected it, but I couldn't believe that he really was going to side with his dad over me.

Something rubbed against my legs, and I cracked my eyes open to see that it was the cat. She looked up at me before walking over to a door I hadn't paid mind to before. Zi noticed me staring behind him, so he looked back at what it was.

"...That's just a bathroom," he said. "More like an indoor-outhouse. It's gross."

"I'm going," I said, standing up and wiping at my eyes.

Zi didn't say anything about me leaving the table. I didn't need to use the bathroom, but Louise looked like she wanted me to follow her inside, so I did. I realized before I even closed the door behind us why she wanted to me to go to the bathroom with her.

Shad had prevented her from leading me wherever Link told her to by bringing us inside, but the bathroom had a small window. She wanted to escape.

I didn't know if it was a good idea. Zi would find out eventually that I was no longer in the bathroom, and then he would come after me.

But Link had been the one to give directions to Louise about taking me away from the bar. He wouldn't have told her to take me somewhere I wasn't safe.

With some difficulty due to its high position on the wall, I opened the window, and then Louise jumped through it. I stood on the toilet and put my arms through the opening, and with more difficulty than opening it, I managed to hoist myself up and out the window. I fell gracelessly to the cobblestone street outside and groaned in pain.

Louise was running before I was fully to my feet, and I grabbed the towel that had fallen off me before I ran after her. She took me down street after street as Link had done earlier, and I realized after a few minutes of running that she seemed to be taking me back the way that Link and I had come. It turned out that my observation was right; she led me outside the same double doors we came in through, and she came to a stop.

"This is where he wanted you to take me?" I asked.

Louise merely blinked up at me.

"...You can speak wolf, but you can't speak human?"

She made no sign that she understood what I said, so I took that as a yes.

I sighed and sat down. I supposed it was far enough away from Zi; there were so many roads in Castle Town, and surely this couldn't have been the only way to leave it. If he wanted to search for me, it would probably take him a while to come the way we had gone, and I could also jump into the moat and hide under the bridge if I needed to. A body of water would be the absolute last place Zi would think to look for me.

Louise jumped on me and curled up in my lap, and I laid the towel down over her body. Though it was starting to slow, rain was still coming down, and I didn't think the cat would have liked to get any more wet than she already was.

I had been absentmindedly petting the soft fur on Louise's head for what felt like half an hour when I heard something coming towards me. I panicked and hurried to get to my feet, scaring Louise, before the sound or where it was coming from registered within me. After I stood, I realized that the footsteps were coming from the bridge, not from inside the town, and that they were very clearly not human footsteps. I looked to the bridge, and Link was there, still as a wolf, walking towards me with Midna on his back. She still hadn't reverted to a shadow, but her color had come back to her. She looked healthy. I had never felt so relieved upon seeing her.

"What happened?" I asked as they approached.

"Princess Zelda ... _saved_ me," Midna said, pronouncing ' _saved_ ' like there was some other meaning behind it. "And she told us what to do to break the curse Zant put on Link. We have to head for the Sacred Grove deep in Faron Woods to find the Master Sword."

I remembered hearing of the Master Sword back in America, so I knew it had to be important here, though I wondered how it could have been helpful now of all times. "Link can't exactly use a sword right now though, can he?"

"No, but the Master Sword can never be touched by evil. It's the only thing that will banish the curse from him."

Link nodded along to what she said, or at least that's what I had thought he was doing at first. It wasn't until I looked at his face that I realized his head was bobbing up and down because he was beginning to doze off every few seconds and then waking himself up.

"Link needs to sleep before doing anything. He can barely keep his head up," I said. He blinked his eyes wide open at my words.

"Since he's a wolf, and ... the twilight doesn't affect you, I can actually warp us down to Ordon through a twilight portal, and he can sleep in his house," Midna said.

"The twilight really wasn't affecting me at all?" I asked. "I thought... I thought you were wrong before, that it was possible for me to be a spirit and still see you and Link in the twilight."

"I wasn't wrong. You weren't a spirit back there."

My brows furrowed. "Why not?" I asked, even though I thought I knew the answer.

"Whatever the reason... It's a good thing, isn't it? You can warp through the twilight. That's easier than you having to walk or ride a horse everywhere."

"I guess," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. ' _I guess, if I value convenience over having a spirit._ '

I didn't know why the thought upset me so much. It wasn't like I had ever believed in that religious mumbo-jumbo in the first place. If I'd been asked a month ago if I thought I had a spirit, I would have laughed and said no—so why did the confirmation of what I had always believed hurt?

"Can we go?" I asked. "Zi is probably looking for me in the town. I don't want to linger around here any longer."

With a snap of Midna's fingers, we were gone.

* * *

 **I proudly present: a reasonably timely update.**

 **FFN is going to say this chapter officially makes the story over 100,000 words, but that's actually just because of AN's and the fact that FFN's wordcounter counts hundreds of extra words per chapter that aren't actually there for some reason anyways. Technically it's at 96,619 words as of this chapter, and the next chapter will be the one to push this story past 100k. Regardless, we're basically there! woot woot**

 **Jack54311:** Maybe I should start putting little "In the previous chapter..." rundowns at the beginning of new chapters whenever I wind up taking months to update so nobody gets lost, ha. And yeah, bonding time is coming :) I can't make them hate each other forever lol.


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